


Bloodhound

by Torytigress92



Series: Star Wars: A New Dawn [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Angst, BAMF!Cal, BAMF!Jayna, Blood Kink, Blood and Injury, Calquisitor, Cat and Mouse, Cunnilingus, Dream Sex, Dub-Con Warning for Chapter II, F/M, Fighting As Foreplay, Fighting Kink, Force Bond, Force Dyad, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Inquisitor!Cal Kestis, Jayna isn't the nicest in this AU, Just Another Day of Treachery And Backstabbing in the Galactic Empire, Obsession, Oral Sex, Poor BD-1..., Possessive Behavior, Potential Trigger Warning: Aspects of PTSD and Depressive Behaviours, Psychological Trauma, Scum and Villainy, Seduction, Smut, That's Not How The Force Works!? Says Who!?, The Dark Side of the Force, These tags might be spoiler-y but they're here for a reason: heed them, Typical Nar Shaddaa shenangians, potentially dub-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:13:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 36,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25094404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Torytigress92/pseuds/Torytigress92
Summary: AU from Chapter 26 of Episode 1: The Path Forward.Things go badly wrong in the Fortress Inquisitorius. A year later, Jayna is trying to move on in her life, fighting with Saw Gerrera's Partisans while holding onto her sanity and the last dim spark of Light inside her by her fingernails.But during a routine sabotage mission to an Imperial farming complex on Felucia, Jayna comes face to face with a figure from her past, one thought long-dead and lost. The only problem...? He's now an Imperial Inquisitor, the Hound of the Empire. On the Emperor's leash, he might be but the First Brother has an agenda of his own.Determined to see her fall, he will hunt her across the stars until she finally succumbs to the pull of the Dark and his own seduction. Jayna draws him in, determined to beat him but can she win against the other half of her soul? Will she even want to?
Relationships: Cal Kestis/Jayna Shan, Cal Kestis/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Star Wars: A New Dawn [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1554721
Comments: 14
Kudos: 44





	1. The Wanted

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, so this is a little AU I cooked up after discussing Inquisitor!Cal with a friend. I know Cameron's performance on Gotham has informed quite a few depictions of Inquisitor!Cal, but for my money I found Jeremiah Valeska a more fitting template for Inquisitor!Cal than Jerome...
> 
> I'm not going to lie, people, this is bleak, it's dark, it might be sexy but heed the tags. This chapter isn't too bad, but I'll be updating them as I post so keep an eye out for anything which might squick you out.
> 
> Have this in lieu of Chapter 27 of Path Forward, which I am working on, but it's being stubborn and doesn't want to just jump onto the page from my brain like a good little daydream. 
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoy and let me know what you think in the comments below!

_They were running as fast as they could down the long hallway leading to the surface access turbolift. Her body was aching, her mind numbed from grief, anger, despair, and pain after watching Cere being tossed into the magma vent under the interrogation chamber. All she could feel was the urge to keep moving, to escape._

_It was all they could do for Cere now._

_His arm around her waist, Cal and BD-1 ran at her side, the former supporting her weakened body as they ran. She’d found an influx of energy when they fought Trilla, but it was swiftly ebbing as the after-effects of the fight on Bogano, the torture Trilla subjected her to, and their final fight and wild flight from that dark, armoured warrior that had appeared and struck Trilla down, made themselves known._

_She could dimly hear Cal speaking to Merrin and Greez on the comm as they finally reached the doors at the end of the hallway, just as Jayna felt the overwhelming tidal wave of darkness on the other side as they opened._

_Revealing the armoured warrior they’d faced only moments earlier, and been forced to flee._

_Cal let her go, activating his lightsaber as he pushed her back, desperately parrying blow after blow, until with a contemptuous wave of his hand, the armoured warrior sent them both flying back, landing hard on their backs on the unyielding metal gantry of the hallway floor._

_Jayna rolled over onto her stomach, winded, as she looked up to see Cal already up on his knees, holding off the Sith lord’s lightsaber. In a daze, she saw BD-1 hop across to their opponent’s back, jabbing him in the neck with his scomp link as electrical discharge overloaded the cybernetics in his suit._

_With a roar, the Sith lord pushed Cal back, grabbing hold of the brave, little droid on his shoulder and clutching it by its head as his grip began to tighten._

_Cal took advantage of BD’s diversion to charge the Sith lord, causing him to throw the droid aside as he parried, then sidestepped Cal’s wild lunge._

_With another wave of pressure from his outstretched hand, Cal went flying back from them, landing hard and rolling to a stop a little way from Jayna as she forced herself to her feet._

_Their eyes met and held for a single, fleeting moment as they both came to the realisation they couldn’t beat him, they couldn’t win against him, but then Cal’s jaw firmed as he rolled over, flinging out his hand as he called his lightsaber to him desperately._

_It rocketed through the air towards them as Jayna activated hers, taking a defiant guard, but then Cal’s saber shuddered to a halt, floating in mid-air as they looked up and realised the Sith lord held it in an invisible grip of durasteel._

_“Surrender the holocron!” he demanded, in a cold, monotone voice as Cal and Jayna stared at him in horror._

_“I’ll never give it to you!” Cal shouted desperately. The bag he’d used to carry it lay behind him, its strap broken by Cal’s fall as Jayna snatched it up, holding it in her free hand as she stared the Sith lord down._

_“We shall see,” the Sith intoned ominously, as Cal’s lightsaber began to turn in the air, so the emitter pointed towards Cal. With a hum, its blade activated, impaling Cal through his lower ribcage as he cried out in agony. Grasping its hilt, he tried desperately to stop it spearing him any further as Jayna shouted in rage and denial._

_Deactivating her lightsaber, she flung out her hand, pushing the Sith lord back against the far wall as she unleashed an unrelenting wave of pressure, pinning him in place as he chuckled, utterly unconcerned by her manoeuvre even as Cal’s lightsaber deactivated, falling to the floor._

_BD-1 raced to his master’s side, booping concernedly as he panted for breath, his lung clearly perforated as it whistled from his lips._

_Baring her teeth, Jayna stepped forward, seeing nothing but red as Cal’s voice echoed in her head. ‘Jayna, no!’_

_She was using the Dark Side at that moment, she knew it but she couldn’t bring herself to care, consumed by her anger and pain as the Sith lord laughed._

_“Yesss,” he hissed, knowingly. “Let your anger feed your power. Give into it! You will become so much stronger in the Dark Side!”_

_Despite her strength, he slowly overcame it, taking one step, then another towards them, even as Jayna pushed harder against him, sweat beading along her brow._

_“Jayna…” Cal breathed, his voice so gentle and loving as she looked down at him. His eyes were warm and soft, as he raised a hand._

_In the Force bond, so newly re-established once more after their reunion in the interrogation chamber, she could feel overwhelming, transcendent waves of love and resignation as they buffeted her, weakened her control as the wave of Force energy began to ebb, dissipating as the Sith lord stalked towards them. ‘I love you,’_ _he whispered in her head, just as he flung his hand out, calling on all his power. But it wasn’t aimed at the Sith lord intent on slaughtering them, but at the transparisteel protecting them from the ocean outside the hallway, shattering it as Jayna’s eyes widened._

_“Cal, no!” she screamed, but a second wave of Force energy sent her flying through the hole and into the water outside, obscuring her vision as she clamped her mouth shut. Her rebreather had been taken from her with all her equipment when she’d been captured, so she was forced to hold her breath with what little air she’d managed to inhale before Cal’s desperate move._

_BD-1 floated in the water next to her, as she reached out and grabbed the droid, helping it onto her back as its feet dug into her clothing, holding on._

_Frantically, she looked about for Cal but she couldn’t see any trace of him, except for his lightsaber hilt floating nearby. Grabbing it impulsive, she hooked to her belt as she searched urgently for him, but he hadn’t been thrown into the water with her._

_As she looked back to the perforated hallway, she could see the Sith lord had cocooned himself in a bubble of protective Force energy, keeping the water at bay, as he steadily pushed it back. And at his feet… lay Cal, clearly unconscious from the effort of breaking the transparisteel and his wound, as she fought down the urge to scream._

_Every cell in her body burned to swim back to him, but the weight of the bag containing the holocron was heavy against her back. She floated, irresolute as her air began running out, then with a wrench of agony deep in her soul, she forced herself to turn away and begin to swim, straining towards the surface._

_Her lungs burned, her limbs ached, her strength swiftly ebbing, her vision turning dark even as she fought to reach the surface._

_Then green flames flared in front of her, as a pair of strong arms grasped her by the waist._

_But all Jayna could think of was Cal. And his sacrifice._

_She had left him behind. In her head, the Force bond was dormant, glowing dimly, as she promised herself she’d go back for him. Just as soon as the holocron was safe, she would go back. She would find him and they would escape…_

* * *

“Hey, up and at ‘em, Master Jedi!” a strident, grating voice woke Jayna from her sleep, tearing her away from the memories of that terrible day. She was jolted hard against a metal bulkhead, making her wince as her head ached at the contact.

Opening her eyes, she came face-to-face with her assigned squad for the mission: a pair of Rodian sharpshooters by the names of Roth and Cheela, a Wookiee warrior called Marryyyskk, and a male Human medic known simply as ‘Doc’. She blinked herself away, staring into Doc’s cold brown eyes.

“I told you not to call me that, Doc!” she snapped brusquely, covering her disquiet from the dream with sarcasm. “Or shall we swap back to first names again?”

“Wow, someone’s not had their mornin’ caf,” Cheela remarked wryly, as Jayna just rolled her eyes. Not for the first time, she wished Saw had assigned her with Merrin for this rotation’s operations, instead of this unfamiliar squad. But the guerrilla leader had reasoned it was better to space his most powerful fighters out than focus them in one group.

She hadn’t the energy to argue with him that morning, before they dropped out of hyperspace over Felucia. BD-1 had opted to go with Merrin, and she didn’t have the energy to protest that either.

They were targeting an Imperial farming complex used to feed the Imperial military forces in the sector. What was meant to a simple sabotage operation had turned into a full-scale assault after Saw’s infiltrators were caught and met heavier resistance than anticipated. Now Saw was calling in the cavalry, to use an antiquated phrase.

“We’re approaching the drop point!” Roth yelled over the roar of the engines, their dilapidated but still operational Clone Wars-era LAAT gunship speeding towards the battle through the fungi-like flora of Felucia’s jungles.

As Jayna got into position by the open side, her lightsaber in hand, she reflected on the dream she’d just been forced to endure. Wherever possible, she refused to think about the events of a year prior, the terrible loss she’d experienced on Nur, but it seemed that today, of all days, her mind was determined to dredge up thoughts of the past.

As if on cue, her comm buzzed in her ear. “Hey, how’s it hangin’ Jay?” Greez asked. The Latero had been assigned piloting duties, so he mostly stayed out of combat operations to his satisfaction. He’d also found a niche as the camp cook whenever they stayed planet-side for more than a few hours.

“Oh, you know how it is, Greez. Just waiting to jump into an Imperial hellhole, probably under heavy artillery fire, and bail out Saw’s reckless arse… highlight of my day,” Jayna quipped, drawing chuckles from her squadmates. She ignored them.

“Speakin’ of reckless, be careful out there! We lost a lot of people lately… don’t need to be losin’ you too,” the Latero replied gruffly to her sarcasm.

“I’ll be fine, Greez,” she replied, her voice layered in sheet-ice. Before he could reply, she cut the transmission, inhaling deeply as she pushed her temper back into its cage.

Sometimes, she wondered why Greez had stayed with her after…what happened on Nur. She wondered if it was out of some misplaced sense of guilt, especially as he could be making far more money elsewhere. Merrin’s continued presence, she understood… the Nightsister had nowhere else to go, except back to a deserted dustball of a homeworld, full of ghosts.

“Approaching the drop point! Get ready to jump!” their pilot yelled over the intercom, as the air suddenly became thick with the ozone flashes of blaster fire, as up ahead Jayna glimpsed several AT-STs as well as troop transports and at least two TIE fighters giving air support to the beleaguered Imperial garrison. From the looks of things, namely the plumes of smoke trailing from the complex’s fields, Saw had been successful in destroying most of the Empire’s crops but now they were pinned down.

They needed something more than blaster rifles and manpower to get out of this one alive. They need something to even the odds of the Imperial military’s might. They needed a Jedi.

Something Jayna was happy enough to deliver. When she fought, at least she didn’t need to think about anything except beating the enemy and surviving the battle.

A year had wrought great changes in Jayna. It had given her the chance to hone and refine the skills Cere and Cal had taught her, as well as discover new ones through trial and error, making her a more formidable opponent. Her battle meditation had only increased in power, granting her the strength to take down almost any opponent who crossed her path in moments.

All except Sith and Inquisitors…

She hadn’t heard or seen hide nor hair of either the Sith or the Inquisitorius. The Empire had been seeking Saw and his Partisans ruthlessly, and their efforts only grew more merciless but their pursuers had always been the same stunted, Imperial uniforms and armoured Stormtroopers they’d always faced. In the Force, when she opened herself up to it, she sensed only darkness and couldn’t discern anything else, nor did it offer any insights into the activities of the Inquisitors since her escape from Nur.

It didn’t matter. When she finally, inevitably faced them again, they would find her stronger than they could’ve imagined.

Which was why, when Marryyyskk tried to offer her one of the jetpacks Saw had purloined from an abandoned, Clone Wars-era depot in the Outer Rim, she just shook her head. She didn’t need one.

“Go, go, go!” the pilot of their gunship yelled, as the soldier in the gun turret opened fire, laying down a blanket of cover as the members of her squad launched themselves into the air. Taking a deep breath, opening herself to the Force as it flowed through her once more, Jayna joined them, throwing herself into the chaos of battle without fear as she leapt from transport to transport, leap-frogging from point to point until she hit the ground.

And it was chaos. And carnage, she realised, as she landed in the midst of a firefight between a squad of Stormtroopers and a pinned down group of Partisans, taking shelter behind the burnt out husk of a grain bin.

The humidity of Felucia made her clothes stick to her skin, irritating her as she activated her lightsaber, effortlessly batting away the Imperials’ blaster fire, deflecting it back at them as she advanced.

She heard a triumphant cry as the pinned Partisans saw her intervention and joined her, laying down their own lattice of blaster bolts until the retreating Stormtroopers were cut to pieces.

Not waiting to hear their thanks, she dashed away, ignoring the comms chatter in her ear as Doc and Marryyyskk loudly complained that she was leaving them behind, while she knew Roth and Cheela had probably already got themselves into position to snipe at the Imperials and weren’t too bothered about what she did.

Leaping towards the next group of Stormtroopers with inhuman strength and speed, she reached out with her battle meditation, tugging on the threads connecting her to them as their reactions slowed by a split second, long enough for her to cut them down before they could even crook their fingers on their blaster rifle triggers.

“Jayna! Watch out!” she heard the gruff, hoarse shout of a familiar voice, as she looked up to see Saw fighting tooth and nail to free his group, but he was pinned by the looming presence of an AT-ST. It had noticed her, its legs stepping to swing round to fire on her position, as she didn’t hesitate.

Calling on the Force to speed her on, she dashed towards it, leaping into the air as her shining golden blade cut through its durasteel leg, sending it tumbling to the ground before it could even prepare to fire on her.

It tumbled to the ground, imploding with a _bang_ as the impact shattered its fuel cell, as Jayna paused to catch her breath. All around her, the fight still raged as Saw’s fighters battled out of their cover, sending the Imperial Army scurrying with just a nudge or two of her gift, as she made their panic and fear grow, rendering them slow and weak as Saw’s fighters only found fresh strength and will to fight.

Suddenly, she almost stumbled as she was overwhelmed by a wave of darkness in the Force. She felt a burning in the back of her mind, as she inhaled tightly, her breath hitching. The Force bond… or what was left of it. In the place in her head where it once rested, now just ashes and shadows, there were embers burning.

Her eyes darted frantically, blind to her danger, as she desperately tried to deduce what was happening. _‘It can’t be…’_ she thought.

She hadn’t heard or felt anything from the Force bond since… since Nur. Since she lost everything…

A scream over her comms tore her from her preoccupation as she looked up as a sinisterly familiar TIE Fighter screeched overhead, firing on a comms tower. An Inquisitor’s TIE Fighter…

Towards a hangar in the distance. Where her squad had gone, all except Roth and Cheela who, she had a sinking, sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach, were on that comms tower the TIE had destroyed on its way past, the others passing her in the tumult of battle to secure shuttles for the evac. Stretching her awareness out, she felt the presence of… Purge Troopers and something else…something far stronger than their stunted, twisted minds. The Force roiled and bubbled with darkness, like a geyser reaching its pressure point.

They were in trouble.

Without bothering to wait for backup, Jayna rushed towards the hangar, cutting down or throwing aside any in her way.

* * *

The doors were open as she rushed through, pushing through the plume of smoke emanating from it, ashes and embers falling like primordial snowfall, as she was met with a scene of devastation. Most of the shuttles were either destroyed or rendered unflyable as she spotted Marryyyskk going toe-to-toe with a Purge Trooper bearing an electro-hammer, the Wookiee’s vibrostaff barely fending off his blows as the Trooper battered him into a corner.

With a sliver of numbed horror, Jayna recognised Doc’s broken, limp body beside one of the shattered ships, blood leaking from a head wound that had obviously been his downfall. He, at least, looked as though his end was quick and merciful.

Marryyyskk’s would not be, if she didn’t do something. The Purge Trooper was laughing sadistically as he dodged the Wookiee’s desperate swipe of his vibrostaff, catching him on the flank with his hammer as the smell of singed hair and burning flesh filled the air as accompaniment to the Wookiee’s pained howl.

With a shout, Jayna rushed the pair, but she was a fraction too slow. The Purge Trooper’s next blow landed on the Wookiee’s head, bludgeoning him to the ground as he lay still, his mighty form bowed over as Jayna felt his death in the Force.

She didn’t stop to think, she simply reacted as she cried out, alerting the Purge Trooper to her presence as he turned.

“A Jedi!” he snarled, giddy anticipation ringing in his voice as he spotted her saber, activated from both ends as she sprinted towards him. “Come and play, little girl!”

He brought his hammer down on the cracked dermacrete, sending out a shockwave of energy discharge, but Jayna leapt over it, somersaulting through the air as she landed, cat-footed, behind him. He spun, bringing his weapon down on her head but she parried the blow, following up with another that swiped across his exposed flank. The cauterising wound drew a scream from his lips, but the pain only seemed to excite him as he lunged for her, forcing her on the defensive.

At first, she could see no opening as she parried blow after blow, but then he lunged a little too far, his hammer swinging through the air with the aim of knocking her down. Blocking it with a lateral parry, she spun, driving her elbow into his helmeted head as he reeled. Following it up with a kick to his midsection, driving him back further, she followed it up with a spinning slash that took his head cleanly off as he tried to recover, his own movement driving him into the blade’s path.

As his headless corpse collapsed to the floor, twitching, Jayna stood amidst the destruction and carnage as she panted for breath, fighting down the burning in her blood as her eyes fell on the still, lifeless bodies of her squadmates.

She’d failed, again.

Then she felt him. Felt the tidal wave of darkness approaching as she forced her grief aside, turning to meet it as the _screech_ of a TIE fighter rocketed towards the hangar, its cannons primed. Realising its pilot’s intention was to destroy the hangar, Jayna turned tail and ran, sprinting past the lifeless bodies of her squadmates, feeling the wrench deep inside as she passed them but there was nothing she could do for them now. Dying with them wouldn’t help anyone.

Using the Force to give her a burst of speed, she just made the open hangar doors as the TIE fighter opened fire. She felt the shockwave from multiple explosions as she was taken off her feet, tumbling through the air as she cried out. Behind her, the hangar exploded, its wall cracking inwards until they collapsed, belching flames from the fissures.

Jayna let the explosion carry her onward, keeping hold of her focus with an iron-grip as she flipped over, putting out one hand to slow her descent as she shot towards the ground. She landed hard, feet-first and cat-footed, as she immediately activated her lightsaber once more.

The TIE was coming in for another pass.

All around her was a scene of devastation, filled with the cries of the injured and dying, Partisan and Imperial alike, while in the Force, she felt the abrupt cut, as lives came to an end and returned to the energy field they originated from. Panting, she narrowed her eyes at the TIE, readying herself for the next attack.

Her commlink had been destroyed in the explosion, so she had no idea where Saw was, or Merrin, as she looked around her. In the broken, tumbling carnage of the hangar and landing pad, she couldn’t see anyone as black smoke and amber flames swirled and writhed. A macabre snowfall of ash and debris fell all around her.

And the TIE was still coming. Jayna gritted her teeth, lowering her stance as it rocketed towards her.

It came to an abrupt halt, hovering just in front of the ruined hangar, as its top hatch opened with a _hiss_.

And he stepped up, onto the TIE’s bulkhead, cloaked and helmeted, raptor-intense gaze on her as she gazed up at him, brow furrowed.

He wore the typical black tunic, armoured chestplate and gauntleted gloves that she remembered Trilla and the Ninth Sister wearing. From the armoured pauldrons, emblazoned with the symbol of the Empire, hung a pitch-black cloak, its lining the same blood red as the stripe down his breeches and the underside of his gloves. His helmet was a nightmarish creation, both raptor-like in its narrow visor with its bloody shine, and lupine in the clean, elegant lines of its obsidian black alloy shell. He was… strangely familiar.

“At last,” he pronounced, his voice scrambled by the vocoder in the helmet to a low growl, audibly masculine but she couldn’t recognise anything else. Nevertheless, a shiver ran down her spine. “I have waited… a long time for this moment…”

“I’m sorry, do I know you?” she asked, frowning, hiding her confusion behind her old friend sarcasm as she added, gesturing dismissively with her saber, “It’s just the whole Inquisitor get-up…kinda makes you guys blur together, y’know? Hard to tell you apart, doesn’t exactly make you stand out…”

The Inquisitor chuckled lowly, shaking his head as he swept his cloak back to reveal the double-ended saber at his hip. “I must admit, I’ve missed that sarcastic tongue… I’m known as the First Brother, but you know me better than that,” he insisted, as she bristled.

“I don’t make a habit of hanging out with Imperials of any stripe, let alone Inquisitors,” she hissed, bringing her saber to bear.

“That’s true,” he snorted, glancing down as he readjusted his gauntlet, his dismissiveness almost grating as Jayna had to remind herself not to rush at him. He chuckled, as if sensing her annoyance and mounting impatience. “You’ve learnt patience, at least, no matter how foreign it is to you.”

“Stop talking like you know me,” she snarled. “You have no idea who I am.”

“Is that so?” he purred, glancing up. With a nonchalant step, he dropped from the hatch of his TIE, as Jayna sensed the wave of pressure as he manipulated his descent, so he landed as gracefully as a bird of prey. “Well, you’ll see your error soon enough.”

“Stay back, Inquisitor or I will strike you down,” Jayna called warningly, as he began to march towards her, still not moving to take his lightsaber as if he didn’t need it.

“Even if you could, you won’t,” he replied confidently.

“We’ll see,” she retorted with an icy, fell promise in her eyes as she spun her lightsaber into a high guard.

The Inquisitor sighed, as if aggravated, as he paused only a second to unclip his saber from his belt. With a sinister _hum_ , it activated, a bloody red blade springing forth from both ends. “Always the hard way,” he replied coyly. “But then, it always was with you.”

“Enough!” Jayna barked, leaping towards him. Even as their blades crashed together, spitting sparks of mingled gold and scarlet, Jayna looked inward, to the core of her power and the anchor she held to in the storm. She felt the threads binding her to the Inquisitor, but while she could sense his anger and a corrosive hatred, she couldn’t sense any fear, anguish, insecurity of any kind. No weakness to exploit. She couldn’t influence him, couldn’t de-motivate him, couldn’t tug at his resolve until it cracked and crumbled.

He was exactly where he believed he should be and committed to his purpose. It was terrifying as she gritted her teeth, parrying his next blow to her knee, but she held her fear in a durasteel grip, keeping it at bay as they began to battle back and forth.

And back and forth it truly was. They barely moved more than a step in either direction before the other blocked it, forcing them back as they struck and counter-struck, attacked, parried and riposted in an elegant, lethal dance. He couldn’t, or wouldn’t break her guard, and she couldn’t break his.

She had a horrible feeling he did, indeed, know her and his fighting style was familiar… the former was probably from studying her style from security footage on Zeffo, Kashyyyk, Ilum, perhaps even Nur. The latter…she didn’t know how, but she knew that style…

As they became caught in a cross, their blades pressed together tightly as they stared each other down across the ‘X’ of their sabers, Jayna met his heated, masked gaze, baring her teeth as she forced the thought aside.

“Oh, I’d forgotten how frustrating you can be,” he growled. “You’re so close…”

He snatched one hand from his hilt, thrusting it towards her palm-first as she was thrown back by a wave of Force energy, her saber thrown from her hands as it deactivated, tumbling to the ground somewhere nearby. But she didn’t have a moment to recover, and summon it back to her hand, as the First Brother was there, pinning her to the ground, her wrists above her head.

He put his full weight onto her, holding her beneath him as effectively as if he used the Force to keep her paralysed. His weight atop her sent her breath crashing from her lungs, as she struggled in vain to break free.

“Recognise me now? Surely you can… but I see the problem now,” he rasped above her, as she stared up at him, glaring fiercely. “Your body knows me but your mind… that is struggling to accept the truth.”

“I don’t know you!” Jayna snarled, trying to push him off with her torso but it only ensured she was plastered tightly against him, as she heard the rush of air through the vocoder that indicated a pained groan. She could sense his arousal, and to her horror and confusion, her own.

And a burning sensation in her head that was fighting to break through.

“But you do, better than anyone,” he whispered, as she stopped struggling and stared up at that awful helmet. “Jayna…”

Her breath caught in her throat, as suddenly the air was rent by the sound of shouts and blaster fire. The Inquisitor’s head snapped to the side, glaring at the newcomers as he growled in frustration.

Seizing the moment, Jayna wormed one hand free, gathering all her power as she shoved the First Brother away with the Force, springing to her feet as he tumbled to the ground, falling hard on his backside as Jayna summoned her saber to her hand. It reactivated with a burst of golden starfire, spinning into guard as she didn’t wait for the First Brother to recover, sprinting towards him as she readied herself to end this, once and for all.

He summoned his saber back to his hand, but before he could parry her onslaught, she was inside his guard, sending her blade arcing towards his face, slicing through durasteel alloy as it cracked and sparked.

And froze, as she met the molten yellow eyes of the man inside it, a lock of red hair springing free from the confines of the helmet, thanks to the vertical cut she’d got him with.

“No…” the word was a single breath, an instinctive denial of her mind and soul even as her body responded to his proximity, that single yellow eye watching her guardedly as she stumbled back, lightsaber and fight forgotten. “It can’t be…”

“Can’t it, love?” he asked, his voice a strange mix of the vocoder and those achingly familiar, beloved tones she knew so well. Or had done, once upon a time. “Search your feelings…they’ve always served you better than your eyes.”

She stumbled back further, still shaking her head as he sighed, reaching up to pull the ruined fragments of helmet from his head, shaking out those luscious, flame-red locks free as he ran one hand through them to resettle them.

Staring into his eyes across the small divide that had opened up between them, Jayna couldn’t ignore the truth of her eyes, or her feelings, anymore, no matter how much she wanted to. That burning feeling in her head, that had been plaguing her from the moment they first met each other’s eyes across the battlefield, was impossible to ignore as she looked inward.

And realised the truth. The Force bond…was awake once more, weak, broken and fragmented, but still there. Cal wasn’t dead, he stood before her, hale and whole and…

An Inquisitor of the Empire. The First Brother.

Jayna’s heart broke all over again as she stared at him numbly, unable to refute the truth of her perceptions and her heart, but wishing with all her might that she could.

“I don’t understand… I felt you **_die_** ,” she gasped, as he cocked his head.

“No, my love. You felt what I imagine I felt when you blocked the bond so completely, I couldn’t sense you on Nur,” he replied, dropping the cracked helmet to the floor as he clipped his saber back to his belt. “But now we’re together again, it’ll heal. It’s already begun, can’t you feel it?”

She could. She trembled as he slowly raised a hand to her. “It’s alright now, love,” he whispered, as if they were once again lying together on his cot aboard the _Mantis_ , sneaking a moment away from Cere and the others, the only things of consequence in their world themselves and luxuriating in the feeling.

But now she recoiled from it, taking another step back. “No, it’s not,” she whispered brokenly, her eyes fogging with unshed tears. His name burned at the tip of her tongue, but she refused to say it. “Nothing about this is alright.”

He shrugged nonchalantly. “You’re at war with your true nature, as I once was,” he replied silkily. “But now we’re reunited, I’ll help you. It’s okay, Jayna. It’s time to stop fighting.”

“I’ll never stop fighting,” she snarled, finding an ember of her old fire as she brandished her saber, shoving aside her feelings of rage, betrayal, heartbreak, relief, and grief. She could deal with them later.

The First Brother went to reply, but he was drowned out by the rush of wind caused by the downdraft of a ship hovering overhead. Jayna spun, eyes searching as she felt the First Brother cry out in rage, only to see the _Mantis_ coming around.

Saw must have called in the last resort, after their escape route was destroyed.

The man himself, blooded and filthy with soot and dirt, stood on the landing ramp of the _Mantis_ , holding out a hand as he shouted a warning call of her name over the roar of the engines.

Without hesitation, Jayna sprinted towards him, gathering herself for the jump as she leapt, sensing the First Brother’s pursuit but he was just a second too slow, as her boots left the ground and she soared upwards.

Her hand slapped into Saw’s, and then he was pulling her to safety as Greez gunned the thrusters, sending the _Mantis_ up into the sky.

The wind tugging at her hair and clothes, Jayna spared one last look down at the quickly receding, ruined complex, catching just a glimpse of the First Brother’s shrinking form before he was hidden by cloud cover.

But his voice echoed in her head, a hoarse whisper, growling like a vine tiger against her soul: _‘I will find you…’_

* * *

_To be continued…_


	2. The Hunted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath of the incursion on Felucia, Jayna is left reeling by the First Brother's identity. The reawakening of the Force Bond and the revived feelings it evokes only send her further into a downward spiral, leaving her isolated from her newfound family as she leaves them behind.
> 
> And meanwhile, the hunt begins...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I said: Heed the tags... especially for this chapter...

In her little cave, Jayna sat on her cot, staring down at the lightsaber hilts in her hands. One was a polished osmiridium, gleaming in the low light of the lantern set up beside her bed, while the other was a slightly tarnished, dented chromium, one she’d lovingly maintained and polished to the best of her ability.

In her head, images from the fight flashed through her head like a holovid, rendered in glorious colour and sound, as her heart raced. The roar of the blaster cannons, the barked commands of Stormtroopers over the yelled orders of Saw and the Partisans, the taste of blood in the air like burnt metal on her tongue, the sight of her squad’s broken bodies lying on the ground, the specks of ash and glowing embers falling around them like some obscene parody of a snowfall. And then… **_him_**.

The way he had all but strutted onto the battlefield like he owned it, like he had no cares in the world, none that could harm him as he walked unscathed through blaster fire and flames… the light glinting off his black and durasteel lined mask, its inhuman visage fixed on her like the gaze of some hunting raptor… when he tore the ruined remnants of it from his head after she’d slashed it with her saber, molten yellow eyes glowing… his cloak drifting with studied nonchalance over the bodies he stepped over as he glided through the scrum of battle like the predator he was… the predator he had been twisted into. The First Brother… Cal Kestis… _Cal…_

With an abrupt inhale, Jayna dropped the two saber hilts onto the cot, unease, and old grief rippling through her body as she shuddered. Closing her eyes, she dropped her head into her hands, running her fingers through her hair. She should have been feeling joy, some small sense of relief that her lover and partner was alive, after over a year of believing otherwise but… there was none. Because in some small way, Cal was still dead.

And the First Brother stood in his place.

In the back of her head, the ashes that had once been their Force bond seemed to glow, as if there were embers remaining among the wreckage. For a moment, Jayna felt an intense heat welling up in her core as she saw again Cal’s… the First Brother’s burning eyes and heard his hoarse, growling whisper in her head…

_‘I will find you…’_

With a growled expletive, she slammed down walls between herself and the Force bond, shutting it out completely as she turned and shoved Cal’s old saber hilt under her cot, standing and clipping her own back to her belt. She didn’t have time for this.

Better to think over the success of the day than the ghosts of the past, she told herself as she left her lonely cave behind, striding out into the temporary encampment they’d made on Lah’mu after the raid on Felucia. Saw’s scouts had identified a rock formation that offered a natural fortification for the camp. Those who could not be housed in the caves slept under canvas under the shelter of the tors. There were no habitations for miles around, so they would be safe until Saw decided their next move.

Jayna had an uneasy feeling it would be sooner rather than later. For the past two months, the Empire’s retaliations against Saw had been ramping up, both in intensity and in accuracy. It had only been thanks to Merrin and Jayna that they had received enough advance warning the last two times to escape by the skin of their teeth. And in her heart, Jayna was beginning to understand why.

After escaping from Felucia, she had been noticeably on edge, disturbed and uneasy enough that everyone knew to give her a wide berth, even Merrin and BD-1. So, no one bothered her as she walked past huddled groups playing sabaac or watching holovids as she paced towards a quiet, secluded little spot she’d discovered while setting up her billet. The tors, and the caves they sheltered, formed a roughly circular ring of rock around a wide, bowl-like depression. It was where Saw had set up a large bonfire to celebrate their victory, dispensing booze, and food to go along with one of his grand speeches. Jayna hadn’t been the mood for it, but she knew Merrin and Greez would be down there. She wasn’t sure where BD-1 was, probably off exploring the cave system that ran deep underground of their position.

In a gap between two rocks, a third lying horizontally to create a natural balcony that overlooked the bonfire and the raucous celebrations going on below, Jayna leant against the rock, watching with a small smile as she willed herself to relax, her mind going blank as she sought out her friends.

She found Greez at a crowded table, improvised from an upturned trio of crates and some threadbare pillows, drinking voraciously, and regaling a group of Partisans with one of his many tall tales, no doubt. Thankfully, he seemed to be keeping away from the sabaac and pazaak-playing groups.

A moment later, she spotted Merrin sat with a group of Partisans she recognised as the closest thing Saw had to a medical unit. One or two had musical instruments out, as Jayna’s heart ached at the sight of a hallikset, so like the one Cere used to keep on the _Mantis_. As she thought of her lost friend and mentor, Jayna sighed and leant her head on her arms where they lay folded on the cool stone. She wrestled with grief for a moment more, swallowing hard as she tried desperately to push it away, to let it go as Cere and Cal had once taught her, but it was too pervasive. Too strong, too fresh.

With enormous effort, she raised her head, dashed her tears from her cheeks and forced herself to focus on the here and now, on the present and all it offered: the mouth-watering smell of roasting meat on the bonfire below, the jaunty, uplifting tune someone was playing as a great shout went up, and she saw Greez and even Merrin pulled into the dance, the latter looking both alarmed and delighted at the same time. Above them, the sky was clouded over so the stars were veiled, but there was little threat of rain for the time being. It was a balmy night, as Jayna forced herself to smile and laugh as she watched Merrin being taught the dance, while Greez, obviously a tad tipsy, reeled and jigged like there was no tomorrow.

Alone, in her isolated overlook, Jayna felt keenly the distance between them and her. So many times, they had offered to help shoulder the burden she carried, ever since that day on Nur when they lost Cere, when she thought she lost Cal, when she was forced to flee alone, exhausted and still suffering the after-effects of the torture chair Trilla had consigned her to. She hadn’t been entirely sane, entirely stable when she emerged from the darkness of the Fortress Inquisitorius, grief, anguish, guilt and terror creating a toxic mix in her head that she still wasn’t sure, in her darkest moments, she would ever be able to recover from. Not alone.

Because she was alone. No matter how much Greez, Merrin and even BD-1 tried to help, to offer support and care, they couldn’t replace… ** _him_**. The mate of her mind, body, and soul, the one person who knew her best, who knew her truly…and she’d lost him. Or so she’d thought.

Relief was now an addition to that toxic mess in her heart, but it was one tempered by anger and guilt. Because he wasn’t Cal… not as she remembered him, not as she… as she loved him. The man she had faced on Felucia was all burning rage and deadly purpose, honed and tempered into a lethal weapon. Any trace of the man she loved was gone, burned away in the shadows and flames of Mustafar, she realised as she recalled the dark warrior they had encountered after they had beaten Trilla, after she knelt defeated at their feet and Cere had gotten through to her, the one who had killed her for her weakness and thrown Cere into the fiery magma pits underneath the interrogation chamber with a contemptuous gesture of his hand. It was only later she had learned the monster’s name: Darth Vader.

Somehow, she doubted any other had been granted the pleasure of breaking Cal. The Sith Lord had seemed particularly fixated on Cal, seemingly uncaring about her or the holocron once Cal had Force-pushed her through the tunnel wall and flooded the place. It had ensured her survival until Merrin had materialised in the water and taken her to safety. She’d been so sure Cal was still alive, that she could go back and rescue him after she regained her strength and then…

She’d felt the bond fall silent, its light snapping out as quickly as if a candle had been snuffed. She’d been so sure, after days and nights of fruitless probing and searching, that it meant Cal had died, had left her… she had very nearly gone mad. She pitied the emotionally dense, pragmatic thoughts of her younger, clueless self. She had been so certain she would survive Cal’s loss, and she had… but she so nearly didn’t, and even then, she wasn’t the person she once was.

But what had happened? Why did the bond seem to die…? It hadn’t felt anything like when she closed it off to protect Cal from the feedback when Trilla was torturing her on Nur. This was more than the block they’d experienced after their tussle with Ninth Sister on Kashyyyk, more than the muffling she’d created to prevent Cal from being weakened by Trilla’s machinations… she didn’t understand it.

And there was no one to help her understand. Cere was dead, the Jedi were all but extinct except for her and… how was she supposed to do this? To carry this weight alone, to know what must be done when others looked to her for answers, even Saw?

There was no one.

* * *

Looking down at the convivial, happy scene, Jayna felt the yearning rise in her soul, as her eyes misted with tears she held ruthlessly back. Then it happened.

The embers lingering among the ashes of the Force bond flared and simmered, while her awareness whispered a tingling warning as she stiffened. But she couldn’t move. She was paralysed, hemmed in by the body pressing against her, searingly hot against her as the Force bond burst into raucous flame to rival the bonfire below.

Cal… the First Brother had found her.

Pressed between his body and the stone, Jayna could do nothing as she simply stood, feeling the tiny puffs of air against her ear where his mouth hovered nearby, those black and red gauntlets that had pinned her so easily to the ground now palm flat against the rock in front of her, in a parody of a tender embrace. But she wasn’t fooled, no matter how much her traitorous body was in alt at the sensation of Cal’s body against hers once more. In the Force, it roiled with darkness.

Unable to move, she simply asked, “How?”

“The moment I clapped eyes on you again on Felucia… surely, you felt the bond reawakening?” he replied, his voice rasping against her ear as he pressed against her. Jayna tensed as he chuckled against her, the sound reverberating against her spine, skewering her like icy daggers. “But of course not…you were so busy wallowing in your own grief and despair, it blinded you. Blocked you.”

“Where are you?” she breathed.

“I could ask you the same thing,” he replied coolly, yet she could sense the façade. He was no calmer than she was. “You’re not on Felucia anymore, I can sense that.”

“As if I’m about to tell you that,” she snapped, hands turning to fists against the stone. “And you didn’t answer the question.”

“Which one?” he retorted cockily, as Jayna tamped down the urge to turn and hit him. Chuckling against her, he raised one gauntleted hand from the stone, trailing cool leather against the bare skin of her shoulder and upper arm. “You remember Bogano? Those early, heady days… learning to use the Force, learning about each other… exploring the Force bond for the first time?”

With a sharp gasp, Jayna recalled the memory. On Bogano, during her first tentative foray into meditation she had connected with Cal as he explored Cordova’s hideaway. It had been the first and only time their minds had bridged so they could see and sense each other’s surroundings… until today. But something was different.

“We couldn’t touch then,” she remarked, trying hard to be casual as possible but the heat of Cal’s body, and his amused laugh against her hair, was making it impossible. He wasn’t fooled.

“Our bond wasn’t as strong then,” he countered, running his hand over her shoulder. “It hadn’t been forged through fire, through pain and heartbreak and the trials of Cere’s delusional little quest.”

“Heartbreak? Speak for yourself!” Jayna snorted defiantly, angered by his casual, heartlessly throwaway reference to Cere.

Cal merely chuckled against her ear, his lips trailing over the whorl until he reached the hollow underneath, the one that could have her arching into him helplessly. “You can lie to them, put on a front for them. It might even work… but not on me, Jayna. I **_know_** you. I know the turmoil you hide away from the world, the lie you tell to the galaxy, even to yourself… that you’ve faced it, conquered it but I saw it today. Bright, burning, and beautiful.”

“What are you talking about?” Jayna snapped out, already tired of whatever delusional manipulation tactic he was trotting out. Didn’t the Dark Side ever teach anything new, original? “Whatever Vader did to turn you into his personal whipping boy really did a number on you if you think that’s going to work!”

“And there is it again!” Cal growled, his hand flying from her shoulder to her neck, grasping tightly underneath her chin as she hissed in a breath, suddenly hauled so tightly against his body, she could barely breathe. “The anger, the anguish, the defiance lashing out against the universe for everything it demands of you. I saw it in your eyes on the battlefield, on Felucia. I can feel it now.”

Jayna tried to move, unwilling to continue this toxic, poisonous conversation a minute longer, but she was pinned as Cal’s other hand rose from the stone, twining around her waist so she was tightly held against Cal’s body. His muscles were rock-hard with tension, as she felt him hard and heavy against her back as he pulled her hips roughly against his. Panic streaked through her, accompanied by a heady dose of lust as sensation lanced through her, lighting up deadened nerves that sparked and ached at his touch for the first time since they were separated on Bogano, when Trilla had taken her. There hadn’t been time for any sort of reunion when he’d come for her on Nur and then… they’d been separated. And she’d been sure he was dead, and a part of her died along with him.

Or so she’d thought.

Instead, it leapt back to life, blazing like the stars, as Cal’s hands, encased in black and red leather, trailed down her body even as he whispered poison against her ear.

“And it is what’s keeping you up here, keeping you separate from them. How could you not be? Which of them knows the pain and rage you have? Greez? Saw? Merrin? The tragedies of their lives are nothing compared to yours, my love,” he whispered against her ear, and despite herself, Jayna listened. “How could any of them understand your loss, your pain? I was the only one who ever could… and that’s why you’re here. In the shadows, in the dark… with me…”

“Don’t…” Jayna breathed, as the hand at her waist twisted, long fingers sliding down her abdomen until they reached the ‘V’ of her pelvis. Sliding under the waistband of her leggings, she shuddered as soft leather found and pressed hard against her clit, massaging her folds with the wetness he found there.

“Then stop me. You have the power to,” he hissed against her neck, as he thrust the hard bulge in his breeches against her backside, using his hold on her to rock her back against him. Her eyes fluttered shut, as he brushed a kiss across her neck. “No! Don’t close your eyes… keep looking at them, keep watching them…”

Eyes unfocussed and glazed with growing desire, turning every muscle in her body to stone as he caressed between her thighs, she did as he said, blindly watching the scene below, driving her insane with wanting with every thrust, every glide and twist of his fingers as he circled her hard clit. “That’ll never be your world, just as it could never be mine…” he continued, his words softly caressing the line of her jaw as he surrounded her with his presence, his heat and strength embracing her totally, even in the Force. She was all but drowning in it as she gasped and arched back against him, pressing her body into him yearningly as conscious thought fled. “You belong with me, in the shadows… free, unfettered by any code, any expectations. We belong together, you feel it too. I know you do; I can feel it in the way your body responds to my touch after all this time…”

“Don’t flatter yourself. Sex doesn’t have to include love,” she hissed, determined to try and wrest back a little power in this twisted exchange. Quick as a flash, as she felt his muted rage at her insinuation across the bond, the hand that had been riding low on her hips, holding her in his embrace while the other played wantonly between her thighs snapped up to take hold of her by the neck, tightly grasping until she could just about breathe, but she was pinned. She felt the imprint of his teeth as he bent his head and bit down on her jugular, not hard enough to break the skin but enough for the command, and the threat, to be implicit. **_Mine_** … She wasn’t going anywhere unless he wanted her to.

She hated how much the thought made her already racing heart veer wildly out of control, throbbing in her chest. Between her legs, his fingers found and pinched her clit hard between his fingertips, surprising a strangled cry from her lips as lightning hot sensation flashed through her.

A moment later, Cal released her neck from his mouth, brushing a soft, almost apologetic kiss across the mark he’d left, as she felt his rage replaced by amusement and satisfaction. “In any other situation, I would hunt down each and any ‘lover’ you’ve taken, and make them scream apologies for touching what is mine before killing them, and burning everything they love to the ground,” he growled huskily against her throat, as his fingers eased between her legs, lightly stroking and teasing as she writhed against him. “But I know you, Jayna. You haven’t touched anyone else, not since our last night aboard the _Mantis_. You never would let anyone touch you, except me, and your body knows it. Just as your body’s thrilling to the thought of me destroying anyone who so much as looks at you with desire. You want my jealousy, my need, my devotion. And you have it, my love.”

At his horrible, possessive, borderline fanatical declaration, and despite the building arousal and need pulsing through every nerve ending in her body, Jayna asked with disgust, “What happened to you? What did **_he_** do to you?”

At her question, Cal tucked her ever tighter against his body, resuming his slow, forceful rocking against the swell of her backside, even as his hand stroked and caressed with ever greater intent between her legs, building her climax as surely and skilfully as if he was playing Cere’s hallikset. Out the corner of her eye, Jayna could just about make out his aquiline profile, a lock of fiery red hair spilling waywardly over his forehead as he nuzzled her neck. The urge to touch him, to reach back with one hand and bury her hand in his hair as she used to, was nearly overwhelming but she held it back ruthlessly. It comforted her, to think she still retained even a modicum of control over her own body as it otherwise turned to putty in his hands. For a moment, she didn’t think he would answer her question.

Then he replied, in a devastating, low whisper against her jaw as she saw a flash of molten yellow. “He set me free from the chains of the past. Truly free… and now it’s your turn…say my name, Jayna,”

Without thinking, Jayna pushed him away with an anguished moan, turning and slumping against the rock now at her back, panting wildly as her body cried out in protest. She caught the barest glimpse of Cal, his cloak and chestplate discarded, but still wearing his tunic, breeches and boots, and those **_damned_** gauntlets, as he stared at her furiously.

Then he was gone, and she was alone once more, surrounded by the sounds of the party below as the Force echoed with desperation, lust, need and rage. Shaking, she stood, trying to force her will on her body as it trembled and ached, her cheeks wet with tears. She couldn’t sense Cal anymore, but the Force bond was still there, alive and awake, trembling with tension as it hadn’t been since Nur.

“Jayna?” a lilting, accented voice called her name, snapping her back to reality as she looked up and into the concerned eyes of Merrin.

The Nightsister looked over her with concern, her blood-red robes turned to black in the darkness of the Lah’mu night, and the sight of it made something in Jayna shudder. It reminded her too vividly of the black of the Inquisitors’ uniforms, of the black cloak that had swept along in the First Brother’s wake… “Are you well?” she asked, eyes shrewd and piercing. “You appear… troubled.”

“I’m fine, Merrin,” Jayna replied shortly. Despite the experiences that had bonded them together, she had never completely allowed herself to trust the Dathomiri woman. Trust, and faith, had been Cal’s mindset, not hers. “Just tired from the fight.”

“I understand,” Merrin nodded, a lock of silver hair falling across her brow with the movement. Her eyes looked away for a moment before she turned back with a renewed look of determination. “If you ever need to talk… you know I am here for you?”

Despite the sincere kindness in the offer, Jayna couldn’t help but stiffen. “I’m fine, Merrin,” she repeated insistently, her voice cooler than an iceberg.

“You are not fine,” Merrin replied, equally as insistent, but less cold as her eyes shone with sympathy. “You have not been ‘fine’ since Nur.”

“Merrin…” Jayna growled warningly. She had refused to speak much at all about what happened in the Fortress, just the bare bones of it once she’d been rescued by Greez and Merrin. She wasn’t about to bare it all now, even though a part of her knew Merrin needed to know. Needed to know that… Cal was back. That he’d fallen, that he was the First Brother. And that she was still bonded to him. It was the right thing to do, the necessary thing but her tongue lay mute in her mouth.

“I too have lost a loved one,” Merrin reminded her, ignoring the warning. “I know what you’re going through.”

“You have no idea what I’m going through,” Jayna replied, tears springing to her eyes. Merrin’s Ilyana had died. Terrible, tragic… but she was dead. Merrin at least had gained closure. There could be none for Jayna.

“Then tell me,” Merrin insisted, taking a step towards Jayna. At the move, the other woman pushed away from the rock, turning her back on the Nightsister. “Greez and I… we’ve noticed how distant you’ve become. How you keep yourself apart from the others… even us. Don’t shut us out, let us help you.”

“No one can help me,” Jayna breathed, feeling the Force bond glow and flex in her mind. Where once it had been a source of comfort, now it took on a sinister shine, like the flames of the bonfire set about an execution stake. Her hands shook, both the scarred and the unmarred, as she stared down at them tearfully, her control at breaking point. “Leave me alone, Merrin.”

An icy silence fell between the pair, as at last, she heard the other woman’s footsteps as she retreated, feelings of hurt and concern buffeting her through the Force, but she was too heartsick at that moment to care. Eventually, she regained enough control to stumble away to her quarters, desperately hoping no one else noticed her before she made it to safety.

* * *

Her cave was blissfully cool as she stumbled inside, chilling her heated skin as she finally stopped, turning and leaning her arms against the stone, willing its strength to pass into her as she pressed her dewed forehead against her crossed arms. After a moment, a strangled, muffled sob escaped her lips as she acknowledged the deep disappointment, the loss and need still simmering under her skin, in her blood. It had taken every ounce of her strength to push him away, to break the connection and it left her shaking and weak in the aftermath.

After a minute or two, she swallowed hard, taking a deep breath as she opened tear-misted, stinging eyes to the plain, striated rock walls of her temporary home, pushing away from it as she took first one trembling, unsteady step back, then another.

Despite the emotional upheaval of the past few minutes, Cal… the First Brother had revealed more than a few pertinent snippets of information amidst all the manipulations and seduction. Ever since crossing blades with him on Felucia, Jayna had suspected it was Vader who had broken him, and he’d confirmed it. If he was transfixed on bringing her to heel, then it was logical that Vader knew of the Force bond, knew of her origins where Trilla apparently hadn’t. And if it was Vader holding the First Brother’s leash, then who held Vader’s…? The Emperor.

He knew who she was. He knew she was alive. And he wanted her brought to heel.

 _‘This is bad,’_ Jayna thought, as a wave of terror washed through her at the thought. She’d suspected it before, after talking to Trilla during her incarceration on Nur but now she knew, for certain. _‘Evading the Imperials was hard enough before; how can I evade them now, with C-… with the First Brother on my tail, and the Emperor himself pulling the strings?’_

One thing he’d said was true. He **_did_** know her, all too well. Knew how she thought, how her mind worked, how she would react. He knew what she would most likely do.

But how could she not? She was a liability now, a potential window into the whereabouts of the Partisans, of Saw and Greez and Merrin and BD-1… no doubt, the last Nightsister was pretty high up on their wanted list after the last few tussles between the Partisans and the Empire… the longer she stayed with them, the more danger she would bring down on their heads. Besides, she had a far better chance of evading the Empire, of evading… ** _him_** if she was a single female travelling alone. She could blend in, disappear, or at the very least… draw the First Brother away in pursuit of her, away from her friends and the last vestige of family she still had.

She knew what her duty was now, as a Jedi. The First Brother had fallen, and she didn’t kid herself that she could bring him back. Not now… no, the Dark Side had twisted the man she loved until she could barely recognise him anymore. The creature that wore Cal’s face, gazing at her with warped, twisted devotion and obsession in his burning yellow eyes… that wasn’t Cal. She would be doing him, and the galaxy, a favour. The Empire, and the Inquisitorius, was dangerous enough without a powerful Force-Sensitive, skilled in psychometry, acting as their own personal bloodhound.

Despite the way her heart cried out in agony at the thought, Jayna steeled herself. She knew what had to be done now. But not tonight… the First Brother was held at bay, and she was too exhausted to get anywhere tonight. She would leave in the morning, after what few hours of sleep she could snatch.

Before the hunt began in earnest.

As she undressed, she briefly considered going to the _Mantis_ for a quick shower but discarded the idea as she felt the unsteadiness and trembling of her legs. Her body, more ready and prepared for sex than it had been in a year, was aching with denial as she felt a tinge of self-disgust at how easily it had given in once in the First Brother’s arms. She wouldn’t make the same mistake twice; she’d make sure of it.

Balling her clothes up beside her cot, she slipped under the thin blanket and forced herself to relax, the tension in her muscles ebbing as it was denied fulfilment. Eventually, exhausted, heart-wrung, her mind followed suit as she fell deeply asleep.

And the walls she’d slammed up slowly crumbled down once more.

* * *

_She was aware of him first as a heated weight atop her lower body, hands cradling her thighs and hips as he insinuated himself between, hot mouth and lips trailing biting, tender kisses down the flat plane of her stomach as she arched and rolled her body into his. Against her naked skin, the roughness of the blanket rasped and scratched her hypersensitive skin, as she slid one hand down to tangle in his fiery-red hair, tousling it beyond repair as he buried his face between her thighs._

_At the first graze of his tongue against her drenched, hardened clit, Jayna gasped and arched, the blanket slipping down her naked body until her breasts were exposed to the cool air of the cave, their tips turning to hardened nubs as one pale, callused hand slid up, snake-like, from underneath the blanket, caressing languidly from stomach to breast as he cupped, then kneaded blindly. Mindless, unable to fight, Jayna lowered her other hand from where it had grasped the pillow to slide it over his, feeling the stretch and press of his fingers under hers, as he found and rolled her nipple between them, pressing down herself to urge him to caress harder. Against her wet core, she felt him groan at her impatience, sucking her clit into his mouth as he did, the vibrations from the noise sending shockwaves of sensation through her._

_Her numbed, deadened body came alive, like a live wire, as he licked and supped between her legs, steadily driving her onward as she blindly writhed and rocked underneath him, content to let the dream carry her where it would._

_In her core, there was a tightening ball of tension that only grew tauter with every swipe, every slide and glide of his tongue against her as she gyrated her hips against his mouth, carelessly chasing her own completion. But just as she felt herself ready to explode, that ball of tension reaching crisis point, he stopped as he surged over her, his tongue between her legs replaced by the hard weight and length of his cock. With a long, hard snap of his hips, he filled her as she arched and cried out beneath him, her voice drowned out by the touch and taste of his wet lips over hers. His tongue, salty with her musk, thrust deeply into her mouth at the same time he invaded her body, his cock like a heated brand of steel inside her._

_And then she knew it could only be a dream. Because, just as he’d guessed, she had never taken any lovers after losing Cal on Nur, and they had never… taken things this far. Yet she felt no pain, no discomfort, just pleasure as her inner walls contracted around him, urging him deeper as she felt the muffled ripples of a laugh against her lips._

_He broke the kiss, apparently content to have her firmly pinned under his weight, as she felt his hand brush a trailing lock of hair from her face. “You didn’t think I’d leave you unsatisfied, my love?” he asked, a dark edge to his voice that had her frowning, ripped from the haze of the dream-trance, as she opened her eyes._

_And instead of forest-green, she looked up into molten, golden yellow._

_She tensed, inhaling sharply but then he deliberately rocked his hips into hers, his cock stroking inside her and her breath left her on a shuddering gasp. Before she could muster up the strength to speak, he bent his head and kissed her hungrily, hands framing her face. The blanket fell to the floor from the force of their movements, forgotten as Jayna felt herself pulled under by a wave of bittersweet heat, the momentary ebb in her arousal that had occurred when she opened her eyes dissipated as it returned full-force, leaving her shaking as she found herself clutching the steely, scarred muscles of the First Brother’s back tightly, her nails leaving sharp indents._

_The feeling of pressure, of being filled in every inch of her, was intoxicating as she broke their hungry kiss, throwing her head back in ecstasy at one particularly hard, forceful snap of his hips into hers, the weight of him within her only compounded by the weight of him atop her, holding her down so she had nowhere to run, nowhere to escape to as he released his hold on her face. Sliding one hand down her dewed skin, lingering over the swollen mounds of her breasts before continuing on, he found her knee and hauled it up around his hip. The movement opened her up, deepening his penetration as Jayna keened through gritted teeth, her eyes shut tight as she let her body mull her into a state of forgetfulness._

_At least until she felt his other hand on her jaw, forcing her to tilt her head back down as his hot breath washed over her lips. “Look at me,” he growled insistently. “Look at me, Jayna.”_

_She didn’t want to look at him. Opening her eyes had pulled her from this dream once, reminded her it was more nightmare than fantasy, but she couldn’t disobey as he thrust particularly hard into her greedy core, her body eagerly welcoming him in as she trembled. Her eyes shot open, and like a snake, his burning yellow irises held hers hypnotically, unable to look away, unable to blink as he continued to speak in soft, panting words against her lips. “I want you to look at me when I make you come, Jayna,” he told her, his voice like durasteel and velvet somehow mixed into one irresistible concoction. His face, those familiar, beloved, beautiful features were passion-hard and determined, his unruly hair falling unchecked over his temple and into his face as she unthinkingly raised a hand from his back to tuck it behind his ear with tender longing. He released her jaw to ensnare her hand, turning his lips to her palm and pressing a burning, branding kiss there. And all the while, he rolled his hips into hers, driving his cock deep into her body in a maddening, addictive game of advance and retreat. “I want you to look and **see** , see without any room for error or denial...see who is making you feel like this. Not your green-eyed, innocent boy but **me**_ … _the man who crawled from the ashes for you… you were the only thing that kept me sane, Jayna... thinking of you, dreaming of you… the one thing they couldn’t take from me…”_

_As he turned suddenly bleak eyes to hers, Jayna felt her heart tear anew, as she couldn’t hide from the fact any more that she was making love to the ruin of the boy she had loved, to the man who stood in his place, with his face, his stupid, perfect hair, and those lips she had never kissed enough. “You’re not sane,” she insisted forcefully._

_He grimaced as, after a pointed, punishing thrust, her inner walls gripped him so tightly, he could barely move. He didn’t want to; she could sense it. “I’m not sure anyone could call us sane, right now,” he admitted, panting heavily against her face. “You feel so perfect, Jayna… wrapped around me so tightly… my cock deep inside you… as it should have been from the start… no code, nothing holding us back now…”_

_Jayna tried to look away but he pulled her back, tilting her chin up as he stared down at her with heated, tender eyes, a look that contrasted so disturbingly with the colour of his irises._

_“You can’t deny it,” he told her, bending his head, and kissing her with a gentleness that made her tremble, reminded forcefully of the boy he had once been. “You don’t want to.”_

_“Get out of my head,” she tried to growl, but it was hard to sound commanding when she was only seconds away from losing her mind entirely, her body alive with sensation she’d missed, since she lost him on Nur._

_“Well, someone’s getting cranky,” he joked, as he released her chin. She felt him shift, removing some of the weight from her upper body as he came up onto his knees, but he still held her pinned to him by her hips, impaled on his cock as he ran his fingers over her wet, neglected clit. “Have I kept you on the edge for too long? Allow me to make it up to you.”_

_Before she could summon up a retort, he began to move again, filling her over and over while his fingers played with her clit. Jayna’s toes curled as she found herself wrapping the other leg around his waist, crossing with the other at the ankle against the small of his back. Unable to look away, Jayna found herself moaning and arching mindlessly, her eyes locked on his as he played her body like an instrument, driving her higher as the tension in her core started to coalesce._

_He all but purred with satisfaction as he felt it, leaning down to press a greedy, possessive kiss on her bruised lips, his words hissing over her skin, sending a cold shiver down her spine even as she cried out. “Yesss, that’s it… feels so good, doesn’t it? Imagine how much better it’s going to feel when we can finally be together for real… in the flesh… I’m so close, Jayna… every minute, the bond gets stronger… I can almost sense your location…”_

_Release wracked every inch of her body as Jayna arched and screamed, the sound torn from the depths of her soul unwillingly as she felt him join her, his voice whispering with audible effort against her lips._

_“I’ll be with you soon… I’ll find you; I promise you… and then I’ll never let you go again…”_

_It took everything she had, but Jayna finally forced herself awake, tearing herself away from him with a ripping sensation deep within her soul –_

Jayna sat bolt upright on her cot, chest heaving, her heart racing as she cried out. After a moment, she slowly recalled her senses as she realised that she was lying in bed, under the blanket, still clothed. She half expected to look up and see the dark figure of the First Brother standing in the doorway of the cave, but there was no one, just the night-time noises of Lah’mu and the snores of the sleeping fighters in the nearby shelters.

She was alone. It was just a dream.

But it wasn’t. Her body was still trembling with the aftershocks of climax, her muscles shaking and unsteady as she pushed her blanket back and twisted round so that she sat on her cot. After a moment, she buried her head in her hands, raking her fingers through hair too dishevelled to just be from sleeping, her skin dewed and flushed, and between her legs, a throbbing wetness compounded by the feeling of satiation. On her neck, just over the spot where her pulse thundered, there was a hot stinging sensation.

And in the Force, she could feel it. Feel **_him_** , like a towering monolith in the landscape of her soul, his shadow spreading across her mind. Where it been just ashes, now the Force bond had been reforged into a golden chain linking them together once more. His final words were like poison as they repeated themselves on a loop in her head: _“I’ll be with you soon… I’ll find you; I promise you… and then I’ll never let you go again…”_

She didn’t know how; she certainly didn’t understand but she knew he wasn’t bluffing. The First Brother was coming for her.

After that, Jayna had started to pack. Into her satchel had gone a few essentials: changes of clothes, her commlink, her weapons’ maintenance kit, some ration packs she’d brought from the _Mantis_ and her quarterstaff. It had been left unused since before Zeffo, but it would be handy to have a weapon that was a bit less conspicuous than a lightsaber. For a moment, her hand wavered over the two lightsaber hilts she had. Eventually, she placed both into the bag.

She had dressed with care, choosing her darkest, most worn garments before covering her dark hair with a hood-wrap, tugging it down low to disguise her visage. Slinging her satchel against her back, she turned and left the cave without a glance back.

She’d always been good at walking away without looking back.

* * *

The victory party had wound down, and most of the Partisans were fast asleep. A few stood sentry, but Jayna found it easy to sneak past them as she made her way towards the patch of ground they’d used as a landing pad. As she waited in the shadow of a ship for the sentries to move away, her gaze alighted on a small shuttle craft, a two-person ship. Perfect.

Her piloting skills weren’t stellar, but she knew enough to get to her next destination. Knew enough to get a head start before the Force bond grew strong enough to give away her location.

For a moment, Jayna’s heart quailed. The thought of running, of the days, weeks, months or maybe even years of the First Brother hunting her down, made her feel physically sick. For a moment, she contemplated turning on her heel, going back to her cave and dropping her satchel. She’d talk to Greez, Merrin and Saw in the morning, confess all and they’d work out what to do. Together.

But what could they do, except get themselves killed trying to help her? The First Brother wouldn’t hesitate to cut down anything blocking his path to her, and the Empire wouldn’t flinch at bombing the Partisans out of existence in the process. They all would be safer without her.

All she did was paint a bright red bullseye on them if she stayed.

Her jaw firming, clutching the strap of her bag tightly, Jayna waited until the sentry had disappeared before she made a run for the landing ramp of the shuttle.

She made it, crouching down in its shadow while she squinted through the darkness for the landing ramp manual override. She’d have seconds before the alarm was raised, but seconds was all she needed.

Or at least, she would have done if she hadn’t heard a low burble, and something small and hard hit her in the calf. Swallowing her curse, she looked down to see BD-1 peering up at her, something almost accusing in the way its headcase tilted up at her, photoreceptors narrowed in on her face.

“BD!” she hissed, her heart thundering. “Go away!”

BD trilled a negative, as Jayna glanced up and around for the sentry, before kneeling in front of the droid. It booped a question, as despite herself, Jayna’s heart ached.

“I’m leaving. I have to get away from here,” she told the little droid urgently. “I can’t explain, I’m sorry BD but I have to go. Now.”

BD burbled a reply, taking a step towards Jayna.

Frantically, she shook her head. “No, BD,” she replied. “It’s too dangerous. You need to stay here with Merrin and Greez, okay? Look after them for me?”

BD trilled a negative, before its next statement made her choke back tears.

“Cal’s… not here anymore, BD-1,” she whispered, achingly as the droid’s head drooped. “You can’t help me, not with this.”

The droid’s defiant boop had her looking up, sure the sentry would have heard the droid’s increasingly agitated Binary, but they were still nowhere in sight. Thinking fast, a plan came to mind. She hated herself for it, but she didn’t have time for this.

“Okay, BD. Okay,” she appeared to give in, heart tearing anew as the little droid danced from foot to foot, as she reached out a hand to its headcase. And the deactivation switch located just behind its antennae. “I’m sorry, forgive me BD,” she breathed, not giving the droid a chance to respond before she flipped it. The panelling on the back of its headcase immediately died as the droid froze, its legs and chassis going limp as it fell to the ground. Or would have done, if Jayna hadn’t bent to catch it with one hand, laying it down tenderly. She was crying silently, as she did so, caressing the droid’s headcase longingly. “Forgive me, little guy,” she whispered. “But I won’t let him take you too.”

Making sure the droid would be out of range of the ship’s engines, she turned back to the override just as a new voice spoke from the shadows.

“It’s him, isn’t it? The First Brother…” Saw Gerrera stepped from the shadows, his cloak layered over his heavy armour as he peered at her dolefully in the night. “It’s Cal.”

“Yes. What’s left of him, anyway,” Jayna whispered, turning and facing the guerrilla leader. “He’s coming for me. He won’t stop until he gets me or… I get him.”

Saw regarded her, his eyes considering her as he considered the merits of a new blaster rifle or vibroknife. Weighing her capability.

“Can you do it? Can you look into the eyes of the one you love and kill him?” he asked plainly.

“I have no other choice,” she replied. “I’m sorry, Saw. I have to go. And you should too. Get off this planet, evac immediately. The Empire is coming.”

“Where will you go?” he asked, as she glanced away.

“Nar Shaddaa,” she replied. “I can get another ship there, send one of your cells a message to retrieve this one.”

“You shouldn’t go alone,” he pointed out coolly, as she sent him a narrow glance. “Your friends will come after you,” he added, with a nod at the lifeless droid at her feet. For a moment, she faltered, her hands pausing on the override.

“Not if they don’t know where I’m going,” she replied, turning, and facing Saw, a pleading note in her voice. “Please… don’t tell them. They can’t follow me where I’m going. I won’t risk any more lives than I have to.”

The old soldier sighed but nodded. “I’ll miss you around here. You’re a good fighter, Jayna Shan… and having a Jedi in our ranks was good for morale. You need to stay free, whatever it takes,” he told her, as he stepped towards her, his hand appearing from the folds of his robe. In his hand was a holstered blaster and a small pouch. Taking it gingerly, Jayna opened it to find a small amount of credits. Not a huge amount, but still a few weeks’ worth of rations for the others. She swallowed hard at his generosity as she looked at him. He smiled a touch sardonically. “A blaster’s a bit less conspicuous than a lightsaber or the Force… and more useful than a quarterstaff. Keep your head down, and you should be able to barter passage off Nar Shaddaa. Is there anything you want me to tell your friends?”

Jayna turned away to pack the pouch of credits and the blaster in her bag, before gently cradling BD-1 in her arms as she rose and held it out to Saw. “Just…” she trailed off, as the old fighter took the droid’s weight, holding it like a baby, silent and patient in the night. “Tell them I’m sorry. Tell them to run, far and fast, that I had no choice…you’re going to tell them about Cal, aren’t you?”

“It’s their right to know,” he replied softly, as she tried not to let anger kindle in her gut. She had no control over what he told them.

“Then tell Merrin I’m sorry,” she added, thinking back to her harshness earlier. “She’ll know what I mean. And Greez… but this is something I have to face alone.”

“Then… goodbye, Jayna Shan. And good luck,” he nodded, stepping back as Jayna finally got the override working, as the landing ramp lowered with a hiss.

Jayna forced herself to speak, to offer a goodbye as her eyes lingered on the limp droid in his arms. “You too, Saw. Goodbye.”

Turning on her heel, she hurried into the ship, only half-hearing Saw’s final words.

“May the Force be with you, Jayna Shan!”

As she settled herself into the pilot’s seat, she reflected that it certainly didn’t feel like it anymore. More and more, she felt like the Force had abandoned her to suffer, as her eyes blurred with tears as she looked out of the cockpit viewports, her gaze transfixed on BD-1 lying in Saw’s arms. Her hands moved unseeingly over the controls, blinded by tears as the ship slowly rose into the air.

She was unable to tear her eyes away, until she was fully airborne and Saw, BD-1 and the camp was just a rapidly shrinking speck as she hit atmo. With another few commands, the ship’s navi-computer calculated the route to Nar Shaddaa, and then the black of space gave way to the silvery-white of hyperspace as the ship jumped, leaving Lah’mu far, far behind.

* * *

Nar Shaddaa was known alternately as both the cesspool of the Galaxy and the Jewel of Hutta. It was a place you could lose yourself in, quite literally if you weren’t too careful. Every kind of scum, from traffickers to organ snatchers, existed within the shadows of its skyscrapers. Even the Empire didn’t dare scrutinise too closely, despite the propaganda, and risk angering the Hutt-controlled Cartels.

The last time she’d been on Nar Shaddaa, she’d been a wide-eyed, naïve child. A bit rough around the edges maybe, and a natural survivor when push came to shove, but a child nonetheless. She’d stood out like a sore thumb.

Now, she found it all too easy to blend in with the crowds, melting into the background as she quickly but carefully picked her way through. On landing and bribing the spaceport authorities, she’d sent a brief, encrypted message on one of the coded frequencies Saw’s Partisan cells used, before crushing the tiny device and leaving it sparking in a waste bin.

At least they’d get their ship back.

After she’d made it out of the spaceport, she’d caught a tram to the Red Light Sector. She had an old friend she wanted to call on.

She had only been fifteen years old that last time she dealt with Val. A former smuggler, explorer, and mercenary for hire, the Corellian had a reputation for being able to procure whatever his clients wanted, for a price of course.

He also had a reputation as a collector of the arcane and the ancient. Jayna knew all too well that while his reputation as a galactic legend was so much bantha shit, in that at least, he could be relied upon. He had procured her new identity and background, after all.

She needed more credits. She couldn’t buy even a small ship with the amount Saw had given her, and she couldn’t afford to work for them. She wouldn’t barter passage or stowaway; to do either would be putting lives at risk unnecessarily.

Thankfully, she had a trick or two more up her sleeves than the last time she visited Old Val.

As she entered the rundown, deserted shopfront Val used as his front for his hideaway, she tried not to smile as she was met with the business end of several blasters.

As she lowered her hoodwrap, she spoke confidently. “Tell Old Val… that Meena Cordo has popped in for a visit?”

They attempted to pat her down for weapons, but she found quickly that Val’s goons were highly susceptible to a little mind trick here and there. She let them have her blaster and quarterstaff, but with just a small nudge of their minds, they completely missed the lightsaber hidden up her jacket sleeve.

After that, she was shown upstairs, through a shielded archway that gave off the dilapidated old apartment and into a turbolift. Jayna stayed cool and collected, even surrounded by several Gamorreans as the doors opened out into a cavernous, decadently adorned apartment.

She refused to let her repugnance show, even as she walked past a couple of chained Twi’lek slave girls, their skin a shade of aquamarine blue, standing against a wall with their heads bowed and eyes averted, with the most substantial thing they wore the heavy shock collars around their necks; past tables piled high with food and the expensive, stolen artefacts haphazardly displayed for viewing, while on the street below, people starved, sold everything until they’d sold off even themselves, just to eke out enough to survive to the next day. The first time she had come, she’d forced herself to stay cold and impervious to it all. There had been nothing she could do to change the way the Galaxy worked, and she had her own survival to worry about.

Now, she couldn’t ignore it anymore. Despite her controlled façade, there was a deep well of anger building inside her with every sight that met her eyes.

The fact that she could feel the Force bond growing ever stronger and more pervasive, with every passing moment, certainly didn’t help her temper.

Her guards led her into a large room, open to the air, that extended to a terraced balcony that overlooked the Red Light sector and the city skyline. On a low slung sofa, clad in exorbitantly expensive robes, swollen so large he could have been mistaken for a Hutt, was Old Val.

His greedy, beady blue eyes narrowed at the sight of her, a leering grin on his sallow face as he held out his hands in welcome. Jayna knew very well he knew who she was, had seen the Imperial bounty notices with her name, alias and face on, and that he was likely calculating the odds of sending a tip-off to Imperial Intelligence and collecting on the bounty.

“Meena! My dear, welcome!” Old Val called jovially, extending a hand to her. “Do forgive if I don’t get up… the old joints just aren’t what they used to be.”

She forced herself to smile. 

“Val, it’s good to see you again,” she said, forcing herself to take his sweaty palm. “Business is booming, I see?”

“You could say that!” the Corellian boomed, laughing uproariously. He snapped his fingers, as one of the Twi’leks jumped and hurried forward. “Tea, or perhaps something a little stronger, eh Meena? Obviously of age now, ha!”

Jayna felt his appreciative, lascivious gaze on her body, and tried not to shudder. “Just tea, thank you,” she said, with a polite nod to the Twi’lek. The young woman bowed and hurried away, obviously relieved to have an excuse to leave the room. “I have something for you, Val.”

“Oh?” the older human asked, interest piqued.

“I’m in a little bit of a bind,” she admitted, knowing it would be needed to trick Val into thinking he had the upper hand. Reaching into her bag, she pulled out Cal’s lightsaber. Tossing it onto the table, she knew she had him when Val leaned in greedily, his beady eyes widening with astonishment.

“Is that…?” he asked, rhetorically. “Where did you get it?”

“Took it off a corpse,” Jayna replied, with a forced smirk. “I want to trade.”

Old Val pursed his lips and sucked the air between his teeth. “I don’t know, Meena,” he started, stroking his double chin thoughtfully. “This is dangerous property to hold… if the Empire got wind of it… or of me helping you…”

“I’ll be off-planet by the end of the day,” Jayna replied firmly. “I just need enough to buy myself a ship. Nothing fancy, a one-man craft will do. I want 50,000.”

“35,000,” Val countered, one brow raised.

“40,000. And in cold, hard credits. No money trail,” Jayna retorted. The bounties posted on her were in excess of 100,000 credits. She knew Val was calculating the profit he’d make off an initial loss of 40,000 credits. What he didn’t know, and she knew he was clueless because none of the bounties released by Imperial Intelligence mentioned her Force sensitivity, was that she had no intention of handing over Cal’s lightsaber.

After a few moments more of playacting, Val suddenly clapped his hands together. “It’s a deal!” he announced, as the Twi’lek re-entered the room with a tray bearing a steaming pot and two cups. As she laid it down and poured, Jayna caught the barest whiff of something bittersweet in the steam as it escaped from the pot. _Drugged,_ whispered the Force.

Gathering herself in the Force, Jayna waited for her chance as her senses picked up on the minutest sounds of blaster holsters being loosened and the shifting of weight from foot to foot, as Val’s heavies waited for his signal.

“You know, Meena,” Val started gruffly, reaching out for Cal’s lightsaber as he nodded to the other Twi’lek. “I’m curious about exactly what’s got the Imps in a tizzy about you? I mean what trouble could a girl like you have got yourself into?”

“It doesn’t take much,” she replied, as the second Twi’lek crossed to the opposite wall, pulling back a panel to reveal a keycode. Typing in a passcode, she opened a hidden door in the wall, retrieving a small case which she placed on the table in front of Jayna. Reaching for it, she met the Twi’lek’s eyes, and saw the warning there. She inclined her head as she opened the case to find a pouch of credit chips. More than enough to get her off-planet.

“Anything I can help with?” Val asked, with a considering glint as Jayna glanced up at him. She knew exactly what price he’d demand for his ‘help’.

“I doubt it,” Jayna replied, snapping the case shut. Forcing herself to nod cordially, she added, “Pleasure doing business with you.”

Old Val reached out and took the saber hilt, as Jayna forced herself not to react as she shoved the credit case into her satchel. She heard the _scrape_ of blasters being hauled from holsters, safety disengaged, as the guards around her all pointed their weapons at her.

“Oh, I have a feeling it’s going to get even more pleasurable,” Old Val replied unctuously. “See, I don’t know what you did to attract the attention of the Imps but… I’m not about to pass up a 250,000-credit bounty. No hard feelings, eh?”

“No, no hard feelings,” Jayna assured him, twisting her wrist slightly to loosen the saber hilt. With another flick of her wrist, it would drop into her hand. “There’s just one snag to that plan, Val.”

“Oh? What is that?” Old Val chuckled patronisingly.

“The bounty doesn’t mention exactly what I’m wanted for, does it?” she smiled grimly, as she twisted her wrist. The comforting weight of her saber hilt dropped into her hand and she activated it with a flourish. One of the guards squealed in fright, squeezing off a shot which she deflected into one of his fellows. “STOP!” she called, layering her voice with the Force as it dropped into a lower, commanding cadence. The guards all froze, their weak minds effortlessly nudged into submission as she continued. “You will drop your weapons. You will leave now, take your friends, and go for a drink. You will not return until tomorrow evening, and you will ignore any attempts at communication from your boss. Understand?”

The nearest nodded. “I feel like a drink, guys? Who’s up for it?” he called, as the other guards all cheered and lowered their weapons.

“No!” Val squealed in horror. Jayna levelled her blade at him warningly, as he fell silent with a gulp.

The guards began filing out, as Jayna turned to eye the two Twi’lek slave girls frozen in terror against the wall. “Go to the safe, open it,” she told the closest.

“I order you to stop!” Val spat, holding up a remote in one hand. With a flick of her hand, the collar remote flew from his grasp, smashing against the opposite wall.

“I don’t think you understand what’s happened, Val,” Jayna started condescendingly. “You don’t hold the power here. You never did,” she said, before glancing at the Twi’leks. “Go on, open the safe.”

Once they’d done as she asked, she reached out in the Force. Searching for the release mechanisms, she triggered them with a thought as the collars fell from the slaves’ necks. “How much is in that safe?” Jayna asked, ignoring their astonishment as they clutched their necks.

“One million credits,” one of them replied, breathlessly.

“What are your names?” she asked. They glanced at each other before they answered.

“I’m Rasha,” the Twi’lek who’d tried to silently warn her offered.

“My name is Leara,” the other replied quietly, as if still waiting for a blow or shock for speaking aloud.

“Well Rasha and Leara, take the money and run. Go now!” Jayna shouted, not taking her eyes off Val as the two Twi’leks flinched and then scrambled to do as she said, hurrying from the room with the contents of the safe.

“You won’t get away with this,” Val promised her. “The Empire is on your tail.”

“Might be,” Jayna agreed. “I’ll take my chances.”

Summoning Cal’s saber hilt to her hand, she cracked it across Val’s sallow, wrinkled face as he cried out and fell sideways onto the sofa, knocked out. Taking a deep breath, Jayna deactivated her saber tucked Cal’s hilt back into her satchel before she tucked her own saber back up her sleeve. For a moment she hesitated. Val wasn’t wrong when he said the Empire would be on her tail once they learned of this. The old Huttspawn would take great satisfaction in informing the authorities of their altercation. It would be the smart thing to silence him now and save herself the annoyance of dodging the Imps before she had to. Plus, she’d be doing the Galaxy a favour. The man was a parasite and the worst type of scum, exploiting and growing fat off the suffering, misery, and desperation of others. He didn’t deserve to live.

Her hand flexed, the urge to flick her hilt into her wrist almost overwhelming as her heart raced, then the impulse passed. Without another glance at the unconscious man on the sofa, she turned and left the apartment behind.

* * *

On the Imperial Star Destroyer _Persistence_ , currently holding its position in the Felucia system, there was a chamber located deep inside the structure of the ship. Only dimly lit, the room was entirely black and featureless, with only a small holoprojector in the centre. The floor was comprised of roughened, obsidian black stone, unlike the durasteel-coated hallways outside, etched with strange, razor-edged hieroglyphics, the relics of an ancient, long-dead language that had once dominated half the known Galaxy, now spoken by only a handful of beings in the entire Galaxy. The words spoke of harnessing, of focussing, of strength through pain and power through rage. They were designed to amplify the abilities of any Force Sensitive who harnessed the power of the Dark Side.

In the centre of the room, before the small holoprojector, knelt a man. Clad in unrelieved black but for a stripe of blood-red running down his arms, his cloak swirling around him, the scant light shining through his fiery red hair, he knelt as if in meditation, his hands relaxed on his knees.

At the doorway of the room stood two Purge Troopers in full armour, standing at parade rest, their insectoid visors staring unseeingly at the opposite wall as the holoprojector flared to life. Without hesitation, they fell to their knees, heads bowed as the cloaked man raised his head.

“What news?” a reedy, hoarse voice asked coldly, yet despite the impression of age and infirmity it gave off, there was an undercurrent of sinister purpose and cunning. Even as far away from Coruscant as they were, the room rippled and echoed in the Force with the power of the man whose hologram had flickered into being. “Rise, First Brother, and give me news of my daughter.”

“She has been working with the Partisans,” the First Brother replied, standing fluidly from the floor as he raised yellow eyes to the hologram. Hooded, cloaked, there was little to see but for the profile of a pale, wrinkled chin, skin veined and sickly. “We encountered her on Felucia. Her power has only grown, my Master. She was… quite a sight to see.”

“She escaped?” the hologram asked, its lip curling as it stared down at the younger man.

“Yes, my lord,” the First Brother nodded. “But the connection was remade. With every passing moment, our bond grows stronger. Soon, there won’t be anywhere in the Galaxy she can hide from me.”

“That as may be, First Brother,” the hologram replied. “But she has been… _tainted_. Brainwashed by the extinct philosophies of your former masters. When you find her again, she may well try to do the noble thing to prevent herself from falling into my hands.”

“She might have been trained as a Jedi, but I know her, my lord,” the First Brother replied. “I know the darkness lurking inside her. She bears the scars of it to this day. She will fall.”

“Very well, my boy,” the hologram replied, chuckling slightly. “But be wary. There are those who seek to ensure your failure.”

“My former master, Lord Vader,” the First Brother replied, nodding. “I am aware, my lord. Of him, and of others. They will not succeed. I will turn her and bring her back to us. The Empire will be unstoppable. The last pockets of resistance will fall before you with us at your feet.”

“My apprentice trained you well, First Brother,” the hologram said coldly. “Despite your… unfortunate bloodline. Bring my daughter to me, alive and compliant, and you will soon take your place with her at my side. Do not fail me, First Brother.”

“I will not fail, my lord,” the First Brother replied, bowing his head as the hologram flickered, then disappeared abruptly. The atmosphere in the room noticeably lightening, if only by a hair, as a pair of doors, camouflaged by the darkness of the walls, opened to reveal an Imperial lieutenant.

“First Brother, we have just received word from Imperial Intelligence. There has been a positive sighting of the fugitive on Nar Shaddaa. Reports of an altercation between her and a local information broker have corroborated it. We will arrive on Nar Shaddaa within twenty-four hours.”

“She will be gone by then,” the First Brother replied coldly, turning to face the officer with an air of contempt. “Inform the authorities on Nar Shaddaa to lock it down. Nothing gets in or out. Oh, and inform the Hutts and compensate them appropriately. I don’t want anything to stand in my way.”

“It will be done, my lord,” the officer replied, bowing at the waist before turning smartly on his heel and striding away. The First Brother’s lips quirked sardonically, before he too swept from the chamber to ready himself for the confrontation to come.

The hunt was on.

* * *

Jayna cursed as she ducked into the shadows of an alleyway once more to avoid the Imperial patrol. She’d made it about thirty minutes from the Red-Light Sector when it became obvious there were more Imperial foot patrols than before. Obviously, Old Val had recovered quicker than she’d anticipated.

After hopping it to the spaceport, she’d been able to trade her stolen credits for a beaten-up but solid one-man craft with some to spare. Unfortunately, that was a day ago and now she was pinned down in the Corellian sector after heading out to buy some supplies, unable to sneak past the increased foot patrols without attracting undue attention. She had to hurry though; she could feel the bond in her head. For all she built walls to keep him out, she knew it wouldn’t be long before he would be able to not only sense her on the planet but pinpoint her exact location.

While dodging Imperial patrols, she’d managed to stop and procure some hair dye and contact lenses. While it wouldn’t fool the First Brother, it might help her go unnoticed long enough to make it back to the spaceport.

Breaking into an unoccupied apartment, she’d taken a shower and applied her new look. Now her hair fell in rich folds of auburn, while her naturally dark eyes were once again a light hazel. It would have to do until she could get off-planet once more.

She had just left her hiding place with the intention to try and find a gap in the patrols when she saw another patrol heading her way. Sheltering in the shadows of an alleyway, she frantically glanced around for an escape route, and saw an open hatchway in the side of a nightclub.

Just then, she shuddered as she felt the First Brother’s voice in her head once more. _‘Jayna…’_

Alarm rushed through her, and she darted across to the hatchway just as the foot patrol marched past the alleyway.

“Hey! You’re not supposed to be in ‘ere!” a gruff voice shouted in her ear, as Jayna spun frantically, surrounded by steam as a three-fingered hand grabbed her shoulder. Ducking the irate alien’s arm, Jayna turned and ran in the opposite direction.

It appeared she’d run into the nightclub kitchen, as cooking equipment and workbenches emerged out of the haze, as she dodged workers and droids, ignoring the yells and shouts, until she burst through another doorway into a darkened hall.

Not far away, loud music played, the heavy bass seeming to echo in the very walls as she leant against one for a second to catch her breath, then she was off again, sprinting through the hallways until she reached the main area of the club.

It was nearly pitch black but for the neon-coloured lights scattered around. Revellers danced and mingled, some with drinks, others clearly already high with some kind of narcotics. Spice, probably.

Glancing around for an exit, or better yet a turbolift to the roof so she could sneak across that way, Jayna slipped seamlessly into the crowd. As she did so, she pulled her hoodwrap down surreptitiously; in this kind of crowd, any obvious attempts to hiding her face would be more telling than if she appeared to blend in with the crowd. And she was very good at that.

A serving droid trundled past with a tray of drinks. Snagging one nonchalantly, Jayna noticed the droid didn’t even glance her way as it went on its way. Taking a quick sniff of the liquor, she couldn’t detect any hint of drugs in the drink, nor did the Force warn her. Deciding it was safe, she knocked it back without hesitation.

It burned all the way down as she put the glass on a table as she passed it, heading towards the bar. Corellian ale with a hint of _tihaar_ … not bad. _‘Certainly hits the spot,’_ Jayna thought idly.

 _‘Wow… I see what you meant about the tihaar. I felt that from here, it does pack a punch,’_ a familiar voice sounded in her head, making her freeze as she paused in the milling crowd. _‘I can practically feel it burning in your blood.’_

When had her walls come down? But no, they were still intact. Which could only mean…. He was too close for them to do much good. Tentatively, Jayna lowered them enough to send her awareness questing through the nightclub.

 _‘For someone who’s meant to be half Mandalorian, shouldn’t you have some kind of inherited tolerance for the stuff?’_ she replied sarcastically, playing along until she could locate him. And get the hell out of there.

Out the corner of her eye, she spotted a turbolift as its doors opened and two partygoers, a Twi’lek and an Aqualish, stumbled out. With a surge of relief, Jayna changed course and began to shoulder her way through the crowd towards it.

And stopped dead when she felt his voice in her head again.

_‘Going somewhere, love? But you’ll miss the party…’_

Stopping dead in the middle of the crowded dancefloor, Jayna turned and looked over her shoulder. And up, at the man standing at the railing of the balcony overlooking the dancefloor.

The First Brother stood there, sans helmet and cloak, but otherwise resplendent in his black and blood striped tunic and breeches, boots polished to a mirror shine. In the strobing neon lights, the scars on his face stood out underneath the perfect waves of his fiery red hair. Molten yellow eyes gazed down at her with amusement.

The shock of seeing the First Brother made Jayna’s breath hitch even as her blood froze in her veins. Inwardly, she frantically checked the Force bond and was dismayed to realise it was stronger even she’d thought… but then that meant he had cloaked it somehow.

With the roar of the music and the loud chatter of the clubbers, there wasn’t a chance in hell of him hearing her, or vice versa. But that didn’t matter as she sensed the surge of intent in him as his hands tightened on the railing of the balcony.

In the Force, he felt like darkness incarnate, surrounding her like an intoxicating fugue, slowing her limbs, infecting her blood as he sent seductive waves of heat through her body. In her head, the Force bond simmered and glowed with slow-burning ferocity, overtaking her reactions as she hesitated just a moment too long.

The First Brother smiled with satisfaction as he gracefully vaulted over the balcony railing, gliding to the bottom floor as Jayna turned and dashed for the turbolift. She felt his pursuit, but the turbolift doors opened and she was almost there-

Until the First Brother’s hand closed around her elbow, hauling her arm up behind her back as she gasped in pain. With a groan of frustration, she felt the coolness of metal against her cheek as she was pressed up against the wall beside the turbolift doors, her enemy’s body pressing her into the unyielding surface as he held her arms pinned behind her back.

 _‘Leaving so soon? We haven’t even had time for a proper reunion yet?’_ the First Brother whispered in her head, as she was overwhelmed by half-recalled memories of the dream and that Force vision on Lah’mu.

 _‘Sorry, got somewhere to be, far, far away from you,’_ she retorted caustically, struggling against his grip. It was tight but not unbreakable, and frankly she’d take a dislocated joint over capture by the Empire any day. _‘I should’ve known Val would rat me out sooner than later. I’m guessing it was him who told you where I was?’_

 _‘Oh yes, most put out he was by your little stunt,’_ Cal replied with a bloodthirsty grin against her cheek. _‘The thoughts in his head… what he wanted to do to you in revenge… disgusting creature. Don’t worry, I put him out of your misery.’_

Realisation, cold as ice down her back, sank in as she froze in his hold. _‘He’s dead?’_ she asked.

 _‘Oh yes… painfully and not well, I’m afraid. I wouldn’t mourn him, no one else will,’_ the First Brother replied silkily. _‘Why so reticent? You must have known the price he’d pay for selling you out…especially once I got my hands on him. No one will ever show you such disrespect…or take such liberties, even in their fetid imaginations. You’re mine!’_ he asserted, ducking his head to place a hungry kiss against her neck, on the spot he had bitten down during the Force vision on Lah’mu.

Gasping for breath as sensation rocked through her, Jayna desperately lashed out to distract him: _‘So, tell me how does it feel, being Darth Vader’s personal bloodhound? The Emperor’s pet bitch, hm? Working out for you, is it?’_ she asked sarcastically, affecting nonchalance as he released her neck.

The First Brother’s grip tightened cruelly, pulling her arms higher and further until she felt the joints begin to give, as she hissed in pain. He pressed his body into hers, and she felt the familiar weight of his arousal against her back, his warm breath panting against her cheek. _‘You always did like to try and antagonise me in order to avoid difficult conversations. I can read you like a book!’_

Just as suddenly as it started, the pain stopped as the First Brother pulled her away from the wall, spun her around and then shoved her back against the wall as he pinned her wrists once more. Forced to look up into his eyes as his lips hovered over hers, so achingly close, Jayna’s heart raced as she trembled. _‘Have you forgotten, love, how much I love it when you get all feisty on me? So many times, I wanted to kiss you while you were throwing insults or punches my way… gets the blood riled up, doesn’t it?’_

 _‘You’re one sick puppy, First Brother,’_ Jayna snarled in reply, trying to push him away but with her arms pinned and one thigh wedged between hers, she had limited options.

The First Brother’s eyes flashed with annoyance as he bent his head towards hers. _‘Now now,’_ he chided her. _‘Play along. Say my name, Jayna…’_

 _‘No,’_ she growled, baring her teeth at him as she felt the growing tension between them turn to fire, scorching her body with lust as her body softened against his.

His eyes searched hers, disappointment and a growing anger glowing in his eyes like coals. Then his features blanked alarmingly, as Jayna felt it race through her. _‘Well, time enough for that. This nightclub is surrounded by my troops, there’s no escape my love. And soon, I’ll be sure to make you scream my name until you go hoarse.’_

 _‘You always did underestimate me, traitor,’_ Jayna snarled. The creature holding her prisoner chuckled lowly against her lips, bending his head to strike as he pressed his lips to hers. But she didn’t succumb, despite the desperate desire to. She grasped his bottom lip between her teeth, biting down until she felt the spurt of blood in her mouth, copper and iron coating her tongue as he pulled back with a stifled groan.

Unfortunately, her ploy wasn’t effective. While he released one of her wrists to touch a gloved hand to his split bottom lip, she could feel a pressure holding her still. The bastard was using the Force to hold her pinned!

His blood was a darker red than the bright scarlet of his gloves, as he stared curiously at the blood on his fingers, as if fascinated. When he turned back to her, his eyes were burning with a potent mixture of anger, delight, passion, obsession, and possessiveness as he bent his head back to hers. “That’s my girl,” he whispered, both aloud and in her head. She felt the words echo inside her, translating to a shudder that rippled down her spine as her anger turned to desire, a compelling urge to hurt, to take as well as give pleasure. He raised the blooded fingertips of his gloves to her lips, painting them with his blood as Jayna found herself trapped in his burning, predatory gaze.

Just as he lowered his head to kiss her again, she felt the hand reaching out to snag the lightsaber hanging from the First Brother’s belt. Perhaps, in the darkness of the nightclub, the would-be pickpocket mistook it for a wallet, or just something interesting to sell on the sly later, but they picked the wrong target.

The First Brother paused, rolled his eyes and without missing a beat, released Jayna’s other wrist to snare the pickpocket’s hand in his. Jayna heard the scream as the First Brother forced it up, then slowly tightened his grip, snapping the thief’s wrist with inhuman strength as she sensed the pleasure he felt in the act ripple across the Force bond into her, his eyes still intent on hers.

Disgust flared, but it provided the momentary distraction she needed. As his attention became divided, she felt his hold on her weaken enough to move. Without stopping to think about it, she brought her knee up hard into his groin, feeling his strangled groan as he collapsed in on himself, hunching over her. Yanking her hand free of his hold, she reached out and Force-pushed him away, sending him and the unfortunate pickpocket sprawling.

Not waiting to see him recover, she could sense the phantom echo of his pain and rage at her manoeuvre through the bond, she flipped round and threw herself into the turbolift. She hammered on the controls, sending the lift towards the roof.

She knew it wouldn’t be that easy, though. She felt the lift judder to a halt before they’d even reached the next floor, just as she activated her lightsaber. Across the Force bond, she could sense the First Brother’s power pulling the turbolift back down, the sparks of the brakes as they squealed and fought against the inhuman pressure. He wasn’t about to let her escape this time.

Cutting through the roof of the turbolift, she leapt out and onto its ceiling, taking hold of the guidance cable that kept the turbolift moving straight, just as the turbolift doors opened and a familiar red-headed figure stalked through.

She caught a glimpse of narrowed yellow eyes, and a cocky grin despite the pain she knew she’d caused him, before she severed the cable with her saber and rocketed up into the darkness of the turbolift shaft.

* * *

Once she’d put a few dozen floors between her and the First Brother, Jayna rushed to the roof access, sending a concentrated wave of Force energy through the locked doors so they were blown off their hinges. Secrecy was of no use to her now, it would only slow her down. Once she’d lost the Imps, then she could focus on disappearing. Perhaps the sewers? Unpleasant but likely the best way to lose the foot patrols and any air support looking for her. It was only a matter of time before **_he_** tracked her down again, but she wouldn’t accept the bystanders of Nar Shaddaa as collateral damage.

Rushing to the roof’s edge, she peered over as she heard the overhead screech of TIE fighters. An Imperial Star Destroyer loomed threateningly in the hazy Nar Shaddaa night sky, while at street level, Jayna could see the entirely block cordoned off by AT-STs, Stormtroopers and K79-S80 IT transports. Clearly the First Brother wasn’t sparing any resources in trying to trap her into a corner.

Glancing up, she spotted the building just across the street, eying the distance. It would be impossible for a normal humanoid, but she had somewhat of an unfair advantage over the average human. She had the Force on her side.

Backing up a few feet, Jayna forced herself to calm, centring herself as she opened her awareness up to the Force closing her eyes. She could sense the First Brother drawing near, but she forced herself to ignore him, pushing aside the intoxicating shock she’d felt when he had pinned her to the wall, the weight of his body against hers both a thrillingly new and familiar sensation at once. She wouldn’t allow her inclinations to make her weak. She wouldn’t allow herself to fall into the hands of the Empire.

With that determination lending her focus, she sprinted towards the roof’s edge. At the last possible moment, she pushed off the duracrete and soared through the air. She heard the dim shouts of the troopers on the ground as they noticed her manoeuvre, the air around her turning hot and thick with blaster fire, but then she was across the gap, dropping to a roll as she controlled her momentum.

Not stopping to look behind her, Jayna let the Force guide her movements as she vaulted from building to building, clinging to the rooftop’s edges when she fell short, rocketing through the air so that she almost appeared to fly to the troopers pursuing her on the ground. She heard the inhuman screech of the TIE fighters as they converged on her position, but she didn’t stop. Running zigzag across the rooftops to avoid their fire, she took a flying leap as one flew towards her, clearly trying to force her into stopping, somersaulting over it as her saber snapped to her hand, activating just in time for its golden blade to shear through the TIE fighter’s wing support struts.

She heard the explosion as the crippled fighter went down, but she didn’t wait to look, deactivating her lightsaber and taking off at a run again as she leapt for the next rooftop. She sensed a surge in the Force, a warning wave of power and knew the First Brother was on her tail.

She leapt to the next rooftop, as she realised she’d crossed over into the Industrial Sector. The buildings were taller, newer here as she just managed to grab hold of the roof’s edge, hauling herself up by her fingernails, her muscles and joints screaming with the exertion as the Force quickly became the only thing keeping her going.

She rushed to the roof’s edge, looking over as she heard the cry of the TIEs drawing closer, but to her dismay there was no obvious escape from the roof of the building she now stood on. It was a duracrete monstrosity left over from the days of the Old Republic, a relic clinging to life beside the shiny, durasteel-panelled skyscrapers around her. Panting, she turned to look frantically for a way out, but the other buildings were all the same, too tall. The drop to the ground was too far, even with the Force. She’d break every bone in her body at best or be killed by the fall at worst.

And there was no way back, as she spotted a dark-clad figure leaping from roof to roof, following her path as she realised who with a shudder. The First Brother.

She could sense his ironclad purpose, steely as a hunter on the prowl, steadily zeroing in on his kill. Her escape from him in the nightclub had only made him more determined this time, as she grit her teeth and turned away.

She wasn’t caught yet.

The Force whispered in her ear, as she looked up and saw the escape ladder on one side of the closest tower block. A last resort escape route in event of the building being compromised by fire or power failure, it went all the way down to ground level.

With a shiver, she glanced over her shoulder to see the First Brother was only a rooftop away. Pushing down her fear as she looked down at the drop, she backed up a few steps and took a sprinting leap towards the side of the tower block. Her hand flew through the air, grabbing hold of the ladder’s metal rungs as her joints screamed at the sudden pressure as she jolted to a stop, slamming into the durasteel with a cry of pain.

 _‘That’s gonna bruise,’_ she thought to herself, catching her breath for a split-second, before glancing over her shoulder. And realised with a start and a tinge of fear, that the First Brother now stood on the rooftop she’d just vacated, watching her with an amused, impressed look in his eyes.

She was fifty feet or so above him, as she realised she couldn’t go down. Looking up, she spotted an access hatch as she began to hastily climb towards it. And felt the surge and the warning in the Force as he threw something towards her. It slammed into the metal above her head, tiny retractable claws digging deep into the durasteel and securing it to the tower block as a red light began to flash.

Cursing under her breath, Jayna abruptly dropped, releasing her hold on the ladder as the grenade went off, tearing a gaping hole in the tower block as metal panelling and stone exploded outwards. The ladder was torn in two, the half Jayna still clung to creaking as it bent almost in half, sending her flying into the void as she lost her grip.

She fell, but instead of the bone-crushing pressure of air rushing past her, she felt the pull of the Force as she was thrown towards the rooftop where the First Brother stood, his arms outstretched. She crashed into him as his arms closed, vicelike, around her waist as her momentum toppled them to the floor.

* * *

Winded, Jayna could barely breathe let alone move, as he rolled them over until he had her pinned securely beneath him, her wrists clasped in his hands as they turned to living shackles, her legs spread wide around his hips as he twined his booted legs with hers, holding her down as she gasped for air.

“Your race is run, Jayna. It’s over, there’s nowhere left to go,” he told her, his hot breath panting against her lips as she stared up at him dazedly. She half-heartedly fought his hold, but he just leaned into her, using his weight to crush her and quell her resistance. His lips hovered over hers, achingly close so they were all but kissing, as she looked up into burning yellow eyes. “There’s a part of you that’s enjoying this, admit it!” he pressed, grinning wildly as she snarled up at him. “That stock of Jedi stoicism dropping low, I see?”

In truth, she didn’t feel very Jedi-like at the moment. Frustration, anger and fear all coalesced inside her, urging her to fight like a rabid animal to punish him, to tear him apart so he wouldn’t look at her or speak to her with that condescending, smug tone in his voice ever again. Added to her body’s traitorous response to his weight atop hers, it was a potent mix as she bared her teeth at him.

“There she is, that’s my girl,” he whispered, as her eyes dropped to the barely scabbed wound on his lower lip. Before she could reach up and inflict another, he reared his head back as he shook his head patronisingly. “Ah, ah, ah,” he told her mockingly. “I know you like to bite, my love, but that’ll have to wait for later.”

“There won’t be a later,” she growled insistently as he rocked his hips between her thighs. She could feel his growing arousal now she was so tightly pinned against him, with nowhere to escape to, as the hard bulge of his cock rubbed against her clit through her trousers. “Let me go.”

“No, don’t think so,” he shook his head. “I have plans for you, as does your father.”

“He’s not my father,” she growled as he chuckled. “You told me that.”

“Hmm, a nice little fairy tale to tell yourself,” he replied coldly. “But the truth is, there’s more of his darkness in you that you want to admit. And it’s time for it to rise and take control. Give in to it, my love.”

“I will never fall,” Jayna retorted firmly. “You’ll have to kill me, bloodhound.”

“Kill you? I could never do that, love,” he whispered, as something in his face softened, a gentleness she’d thought extinguished returning to his eyes as they stared down adoringly into hers. “I love you, Jayna.”

“You once promised you would never hold me down,” she breathed desperately, her eyes roving over his face. “That you would stand by my side, but never try to possess me.”

“I know,” he whispered against her lips, the glow in his eyes ebbing to the simmering heat of an ember. “But you were the one thing I could hold onto, the one thing that kept me sane-,”

“Then let me go. You know what the Empire will do if they take me, what that’ll mean for the galaxy. Please, Cal, let me go-!?”

She was abruptly cut off by his lips, his tongue surging into her mouth as she gasped for breath. He kissed her wildly, with the desperation of a man denied, barely holding himself in check. Yet it was also gentle, loving with all the tenderness she remembered from those distant, dreamy days on the _Mantis_ after they accepted their feelings for one another. She felt the hands around her wrists loosen, as he lowered his hands to cup her face, running his fingers through her dishevelled, tangled hair. His entire body moved atop hers, sending a jolting pain through her body as he thrust her into the duracrete, her lightsaber crushed underneath her and useless for the time being. With her hands free, she could-

But then the slow, tender, drugging quality of his kisses began to take effect as her starved heart fluttered weakly, cutting off the sensible part of her brain that was thinking about escape. All thought of anything outside of their little bubble faded away until all that remained of importance was the feel of Cal’s body atop hers, the feel of his sweat-slicked hair under her fingers, the taste of his blood in her mouth as their forceful movements re-opened the partially scabbed cut on his lip. In the Force, the bond rippled and burst into full flame, encompassing them both in a tidal wave of heat and power. She could hear a low keening sound and was dazedly perturbed when she realised the sound was coming from her own lips. Her legs had crept up around his hips, pulling him into her harder with every purposeful roll of his hips into hers, heightening the growing tension and anticipation licking along her nerves like fire.

The First Brother… ** _Cal_** abruptly ended the kiss as Jayna panted for breath underneath him, unable to do anything but lie there and stare up at him as he gazed down at her as if he wasn’t quite sure she was real. “Over… a **_year_** … I’ve waited for that… to do that. To feel you in my arms again… your lips against mine…I won’t ever let you go again… I **_can’t_** ,” he gasped urgently. “We belong together, Jayna. It’s against the very laws of nature to force ourselves apart. You belong to me, and I belong to you.”

“Cal, listen to yourself. This isn’t you; this is the dark side talking,” Jayna breathed, eyes searching his. “You’re still there, underneath Vader’s torture and the Emperor’s indoctrination. Please, come back to me.”

“Jayna,” Cal sighed, closing his eyes as he leant his forehead against hers. “You’re only half right, my love. I am both of them, the boy you loved and the man who crawled from the fires of Mustafar for you. I am both Cal Kestis and the First Brother, the hound of the Empire. You can’t take one from the other, not anymore. We’re indivisible, just as you and I will be once you come with me.”

“Never,” she hissed defiantly. “You claim to know me so well but you’re forgetting the one thing most dear to me. My freedom.”

“What **_used_** to be most dear to you,” he retorted, hissing the words as that familiar anger and darkness began to swirl around him again. “We both know that changed a long time ago.”

“You arrogant son of a Hutt!” Jayna snarled, impulsively driving her head forward with all her weight until it impacted with his face, making him grunt in pain. Suddenly she found her wrists pinned again, as he dove for her mouth, kissing her with all the ferocity and harshness of a predator subduing their prey. Or their chosen mate.

Her world once again narrowed to the feel of his tongue in her mouth, iron and copper filling her mouth as his nose bled sluggishly from her blow, his body pressing her into the duracrete as she struggled to keep up. It was a kiss designed to punish and it left her reeling as he finally drew back, panting harshly as blood dripped down his face and onto hers, overwhelming her senses. “You’ll have to do much better than that to hurt me now, my love,” he told her fiercely. “The fact that you’re so riled just proves my point…”

“You’re delusional,” Jayna growled, turning her head to the side as she spat the blood in her mouth onto the duracrete by her head.

“You know, no matter how many times you say that, it won’t make it true,” he told her coldly.

“And telling me over and over again that I’ll fall, that it’s inevitable won’t make me do it,” Jayna shot back forcefully, glaring at him as she forced aside the clamouring impulses in her head, the ones whispering for her to lunge up and press her mouth back to his, the dark nudges that urged her to kiss him with teeth and tongue until he bled, like some savage, wild creature that had been locked away for too long.

“I’ve waited too long to hold you in my arms again, Jayna,” he whispered to her, and the tenderness she remembered was back, only confusing her further as she frowned up at him. “I won’t waste another minute arguing with you, not now. There’ll be plenty of time for that later, once we’re safely away.”

“No,” she gasped, trying to fight again as his hold on her wrists tightened. He reared back, avoiding her attempt to headbutt him again as he smiled, his teeth stained with his own blood, the yellow irises of his eyes glowing sinisterly. He opened his mouth to say something else but stopped as the Force screamed a warning.

And the sound of an incoming TIE fighter, screeching towards them, its turbolasers stitching verdant, lethal patterns in the duracrete tower blocks as it rushed them, forced them out of their bubble, as Jayna twisted her neck, trying to see until her view was blocked by Cal, as he threw himself over her, shielding her with his own body as the TIE flew overhead.

Winded, gasping for breath, Jayna could do nothing but lie there as an eerie silence fell in the wake of the TIE’s bombing run. The black of Cal’s tunic retreated, to be replaced by the hellish destruction around them as Cal released her wrists.

The TIE was coming round for another pass.

Cal’s burning yellow eyes met hers once, before he pulled back, freeing her, and stood in a single smooth motion, turning on his heel to meet the oncoming TIE. Jayna felt him gathering himself in the Force, rippling and surging with dark power as Cal raised a hand.

Inch by inch, she retreated, pulling herself backwards even as she stared up at him, spellbound, entranced by his power as he reached out in the Force and grasped the TIE fighter, halting it in its flight. It trembled, all but vibrating as it hung in mid-air, fighting Cal’s hold as Cal himself shook with the strain, before he roared and pushed it into the side of a building, making the ship disappear in a fire ball.

Jayna’s breath shuddered from her as she stood, shaking and weak, dumbstruck by what she’d just witnessed. Cal was powerful, she’d always known that, but she had never seen him in such a blatant display of strength. It both awed and terrified her, as she realised now that just as the Force bond had empowered her, it was empowering him. Because of her, because of **_them_** , he was unstoppable.

He would only grow stronger. They both would.

She took a step back, feeling the edge of the rooftop against her boot heel as Cal lowered his arm and turned to face her. He raised his hand, the hand he’d used to halt that TIE fighter in its tracks and throw it aside like rubbish, as Jayna looked around them at the destruction, feeling the heat of the flames and the cold of the death that had occurred all around them. Because of **_them_**.

“You need to come with me, Jayna. It’s over,” he called warningly, as Jayna glanced over her shoulder at the drop under her feet. “There’s nowhere to run… nowhere I cannot find you.”

“I know,” she whispered, blinking back tears.

“There is so much you need to know… so much we need to talk about. Please, Jayna… come with me,” he asked, forcefully, his gloved hand outstretched. Jayna looked at him, at the broken shell of the man she had loved and could no longer hide from the truth. Cal wasn’t dead, he stood before her. And she still loved him.

It had made her stronger, and in turn, him too. Only she could end it.

But no matter how much she wanted to, she couldn’t take his hand. Never taking her eyes from his, she took a single step back and let herself fall, his shout of denial and rage echoing in her ears as her world was consumed by the haze of Nar Shaddaa.

* * *

Hours later and while the Stormtroopers had combed every inch of the Industrial Sector, they found no trace of her. From his haunt in the field command post they had set up in the smoking ruins of the Industrial Sector, he waited for news in vain.

But he knew she was alive. He felt it.

“Sir,” the familiar voice of his lieutenant interrupted his prowling reverie, as he turned and faced the uncharacteristically nervous man, all but twitching in his grey uniform as he stood to attention. “I have just had a word that a small, one-man shuttle has blasted its way out of the spaceport. Shall I give the order to destroy it?”

“No, let her go. I **_will_** find her again,” he whispered, a dire promise as he turned away from the officer.

“Also, my lord, the Emperor has commanded you to make contact with him. He demands an update on the hunt for the fugitive,” the lieutenant continued, tensing as the First Brother turned to gaze at him coldly.

Standing there, face covered in blood, yellow eyes smouldering with rage and frustration, he looked a sight. But he didn’t care as he waved the officer aside and turned to the field holoprojector, keying in co-ordinates, followed by a code only he knew.

Above his head, the hologram of a hooded man flickered into being as the First Brother fell to one knee. “Master,” he intoned once, bowing his head.

“You let her escape,” was all his reply, as the air grew thick with tension.

“Yes, I did,” the First Brother replied, then said no more as he waited patiently.

“Explain yourself, First Brother!” the hologram snapped, its veneer of paternal indulgence giving way to a cruel disappointment, like a snake gathering itself to strike.

“I had her, cornered. She was teetering, so nearly ready to fall but we were… interrupted,” the First Brother explained, raising his head as he turned and skewered the lieutenant with a murderous glance. “It was as you predicted, my Master. Those would seek our deaths sought them tonight. They prevented me from fulfilling my mission. Give me leave to send a clear message now that their efforts were in vain.”

“Granted, my hound,” the hologram intoned as the First Brother turned on his heel, grasping the lieutenant with the Force before he could even think of fleeing, holding him paralysed as he scrabbled at his neck.

The pressure grew on his throat with every passing second as Cal took a step towards the hovering, floating officer, the man’s eyes bugging out of his head, burst blood vessels painting the sclera of his eyes a watery pink as he clawed at invisible hands around his throat.

“Vader gave the order, didn’t he?” Cal growled out through gritted, bared, bloody teeth. “He told you to command that TIE fighter to fire on us, didn’t he?”

“She was… an… enemy… of the Empire,” the officer choked out, as Cal cocked his head as if he couldn’t hear properly. “So…are…you, Jedi scum!”

“SHE. IS. MINE!” the First Brother roared, as the officer was cut off, his voice reduced to a hoarse gargle. “Your master’s machinations failed… and now, **_you_** will pay the price.”

With a flick of his wrist, he broke the treacherous officer’s neck, severing his spinal cord with a neat _snick_ , before dismissively throwing the officer aside with the Force as he turned back to the hologram.

“You have done well, my boy,” the hologram said, silkily. “But she has escaped you once again.”

“This will be the last time, my master,” the First Brother replied coldly. “There is nowhere in the galaxy she can hide from me now. I will find her, and I will bring her home. And the Empire will be unstoppable.”

“See that you do. I will not tolerate any more delays. I will have her safely in my grasp or I will see you both dead,” the hologram growled, before it blinked out of existence, leaving behind only the vaguest echoes of darkness and power in the Force.

In the silence that fell as the holoprojector shut down, the First Brother didn’t move, staring into the distance as another grey-uniformed officer cautiously walked into the command tent. “Ummm, sir?” he asked, glancing down at the unmoving body of his former superior. “What are your orders, my lord?”

“Have my shuttle prepared for immediate departure,” the First Brother barked, turning to the officer as he stared him down piercingly.

“And… the city, sir? There has been significant collateral damage… the local authorities are demanding restitution, sir-?” the officer stammered, flinching as Cal laughed suddenly, unhinged as he threw his bloodstained head back.

“They are meaningless. Let them all burn,” he growled, striding from the tent without another word as the officer was left behind, face bloodless and eyes wide as he stared down at the broken body of his former, traitorous, executive officer.

* * *

_To be continued…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, tell me what you think in the comments below! :)


	3. The Hunter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jayna is drawn somewhere unexpected in her attempt to lure Cal away from innocents in his hunt for her.
> 
> The hunt comes to its inevitable conclusion as Jayna is tempted and Cal reveals his endgame.
> 
> A new path opens up for the pair as the Dark Side beckons...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this gets pretty explicit so if that isn't your thing, look away now.

As her small, one-man ship jumped to hyperspace, Jayna let out a short gasp of relief as she left Nar Shaddaa far behind. Her body ached from her mad escape, both the fight with C… with the First Brother, and then falling Maker knew how many stories before she was able to catch hold of a balcony railing, nearly dislocating her arm in the process. But more than that, every iota of her being ached, her mind and heart reeling from what had happened in those tense, heated exchanges between her and the creature who hunted her.

Now she had a modicum of safety and respite, she let her emotions free, crying softly into her folded arms on the dashboard of her ship as she finally let herself feel something other than determination to escape. After falling from that rooftop, she had used the sewers to make her way undetected to the spaceport, before blasting her way free of Nar Shaddaa’s atmosphere. Once in space, she’d harboured little hope of escaping but to her confusion, the Star Destroyer hadn’t moved to block her escape, nor scrambled TIE fighters to intercept her. They had let her go.

She had a feeling she knew why. It was in her head, nestled comfortably in her skull, glowing with an amber radiance that grew stronger with every passing moment. She could feel **_him_** , pressed up against the barriers in her mind as if they were glass, shut out for now but the Loth cat was out the bag, well and truly. For all she could keep him out of her head, she couldn’t hide from him anymore. He could sense her location now just as surely as she could sense his, alive and well, if not particularly happy, back on Nar Shaddaa. The moment she decided on a destination, he would know, and he would follow.

There could be no doubt of that, she knew. The First Brother… **_Cal_** would follow her to the ends of the galaxy and back, until he finally chased her down and trapped her until she gave in.

As her tears finally dried up, Jayna couldn’t help but remember those charged, heady moments when… **_he_** held her close once more. Painful, agonising perhaps, as she remembered his hold on her arms against that nightclub wall, yet they’d been charged with a strange kind of intimacy. Despite the nightclub patrons and staff all around them, they had been in their own world where only they mattered, locked in an endless fight, maybe, but together in their isolation from the rest of the galaxy.

It had happened again, on that rooftop surrounded by the debris of her wild flight, gazing up at his bloodstained face as he looked on her with adoration and fanatical obsession. If it hadn’t been for that TIE fighter… truly, she wasn’t sure how much longer she could have held out, not once she was held so tightly in his arms, his body against hers, her lips bruised by his kiss. She could still taste his blood in her mouth.

Shivering, Jayna looked up dazedly as her ship reverted to realspace, hanging in the endless black void of space beside an asteroid belt. She hadn’t a clue where she was, probably only a parsec or two away from Nar Shaddaa but she hadn’t been thinking of anything but escape when she punched in the co-ordinates. Now she had a decision to make, and soon. It wouldn’t be long before Cal caught up with her.

Sighing, Jayna sat back in her chair, leaning her head against the headrest. Truthfully, she wanted nothing more than to sleep but she sensed that would be a very bad idea. Cal had already proven once he wouldn’t hesitate to use the bond between them to cross over into her dreams and continue his campaign to seduce her to his side there. Even meditating felt dangerous, as the Force seemed to swell and ripple with threatening shadows, just waiting to ensnare her if she was foolhardy enough to venture into its depths.

But she didn’t know what else to do.

Her encounters with Cal had only proven one thing: he had to be stopped, and she was the only one who could do it now. The Force bond had only enhanced their native powers, granting them gifts beyond the normal scope of Force sensitives, and it would only make them stronger the longer they lived. And that couldn’t be allowed. The Empire could not be permitted to add such a power to its ranks. The galaxy would have no hope of freedom if that day ever came.

Only she had the power to stop Cal. But the question she sensed was not if she **_could_** do it, but if she **_would_** do it, given the opportunity?

Jayna knew what a Jedi would do. She could feel their legacy, and the burning weight of their expectations, pressing down on her like chains on her limbs, weighing her down under their burden as she closed her eyes to the darkness of space outside her cockpit. For a single, fleeting moment she considered summoning her lightsaber to hand, activating it and piercing the transparisteel canopy above her head, letting the greedy, merciless maw of space drain the air from it until her life went with it.

It might even take Cal with her. Would it though? Was their bond truly strong enough, insidious enough, enmeshed in their souls so tightly that as her breath was ripped from her body, he too would collapse to the deck of his command bridge on that Star Destroyer, clutching at his throat, straining for air until his heart stopped?

It would be the selfless thing to do, the Jedi thing, to remove herself from the equation and take Cal with her… but no, not quite. It would be the coward’s way out. A Jedi would face her enemy head-on and seek their redemption or death in the face of fear and darkness.

How much of a Jedi was she truly?

Once more, she seemed to hear Cal’s voice whispering in her ear: _“there’s more of his darkness in you that you want to admit… and it’s time for it to rise and take control…”_

Suddenly filled with a reckless anger, Jayna flung her awareness out into the Force, sending out a heartbroken, desperate cry with it. _‘WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME? WHAT AM I MEANT TO DO!’_

The Force returned no answer, as she slumped in her chair, feeling tears run once more down her cheeks. She’d once dimly hoped that Bastila might come to her once more in her hours of need, but she hadn’t seen the Force ghost of her ancestor since Ilum, nor sensed her voice in her head. She’d even pondered if Cal’s father, Kenobi, might reach out to her but he never did. She was alone, with nothing but the expectations of ghosts to guide her.

Hell, she’d even take her old mentor Torone right about now. _‘So much for that stupid prophecy of hers,’_ Jayna snarled in her head, remembering the former Jedi Master’s zealotry as hatred sparked, cold and piercing, in her chest.

In her head, the Force bond seemed to flare, a silent warning as Jayna opened her eyes, her awareness floating in the lifeless void of space as she contemplated simply giving in. She was so tired…

For a moment, she allowed herself a moment of weakness. She allowed herself to remember Greez, Merrin and BD-1, wondering if they were alright, if they had gone with Saw or left him after her warnings to evacuate. She wondered how they had reacted to Saw’s news about Cal.

She let herself remember Cere, the gentle yet fierce former Jedi who had inducted her into this crazy, mystical, madcap world she had found herself in. She desperately wished for some of her guidance now, but it had been lost to her in the fires of Nur, just as Cal had been.

But then, she realised that wasn’t quite true. He hadn’t been lost to her, he had stood before her only hours before, hand outstretched, burning with love and devotion for her in the Force, like a bright supernova, alive and larger than life. Once again, she heard his assertion that he was both still the boy she had… she **_did_** love and the man who wore the cloak and symbol of the Empire…

_“I am both of them, the boy you loved and the man who crawled from the fires of Mustafar for you. I am both Cal Kestis and the First Brother, the hound of the Empire. You can’t take one from the other, not anymore. We’re indivisible…”_

Could she kill him? She’d told Saw she could and would.

She had no choice.

Even as that resolution formed and filled her with the drive to move, her hands reached out, guided by something other than conscious thought as she typed in a series of co-ordinates she’d never seen before.

The ship’s navi-computer flashed up a destination and flight plan as Jayna opened her eyes, staring blindly at the readout.

_Grid R-5, by way of Kamat Krote hyperlane. Outer Rim Territories…Stygian Caldera, Esstran Sector…Horuset system… Moraband…_

“Moraband?” Jayna breathed the unfamiliar word, shivering for some unknown reason as she frowned quizzically. A memory floated to the surface of her mind: a dimly lit Tomb, the feel of crackling vines straining under her weight as she climbed up a precariously dangling sarcophagus, Cal’s voice as he explained:

_“As unpleasant as this place is, it’s not a Sith tomb on Moraband…Moraband was an ancient training ground and burial planet for the Sith…it was called Korriban then…fell even more into ruin and was re-named Moraband…it was forbidden for Jedi to so much as step foot on the planet…”_

She remembered the odd feeling of shivering trepidation that name, and Cal’s explanation, had evoked in her. It had almost felt like…a premonition but she’d dismissed it at the time, too focussed on surviving the Tomb of Miktrull and the Second Sister’s traps to worry about it for long.

She wondered now if she should have paid a little more attention. After a moment of staring at the screen, Jayna confirmed the route and reached for the controls. “Oh, what the hell? Just a bunch of dusty ruins anyway,” she muttered, as the space outside her ship once again turned to the silver-blue incandescence of hyperspace.

It would be as good a place as any to finally finish this manka cat and mouse game she and Cal were stuck in.

Jayna began to rethink her blasé attitude towards the infamous, forbidden planet of the Sith the moment her ship dropped out of hyperspace. She hovered in orbit in front of an enormous, rocky red planet, reminding her forcibly of Dathomir but even from orbit, she could see the planet was barren, lifeless.

In the Force, it was even worse.

Dathomir had been an undeniably dark planet, its energies insidious and with a sentience that had unnerved Jayna the entire time she was on its surface but it had still felt unmistakeably alive. Moraband… was another level. Even in orbit, she could feel its darkness, reaching out to her, beckoning her in like the jaws of a trap, just waiting to snap shut and enfold her in its coils. Just looking at its dead, red surface made her feel cold, a chill racing along her nerves, numbing her skin as she shivered. It reminded her of the icy cold she’d suffered after using Force Lightning on Dathomir, but this time there was no one to chase it away for her.

She could understand why the Jedi had forbidden anyone from ever setting foot on the planet.

Every instinct she possessed was screaming at her to turn away, to key in some more co-ordinates or set the navi-computer to randomise them and leave but something held her entranced. Instead of turning away, the ancient home of the Sith was drawing her in, as she gunned the engines, gliding into the upper atmosphere on sublight thrusters until the darkness of space receded entirely.

As she cleared the cloud bank, a desolate vista of mountainous desert unfolded before her eyes, the only shelter from the unforgiving heat and light of the sun the lee of other mountains, other rocky escarpments and tors erupting from the red-tinged sands.

As she flew over the ruined, broken remnants of what looked to be an ancient spaceport, Jayna shuddered. She could sense the Dark side all around her, like the pull of a gravity well sucking her in. Without consciously deciding it, she flew her craft away from the spaceport and towards a deep depression in the land between two towering mountain ranges.

Between these two mountains was a deep cleft, opening out into a wide valley at its base, the long-ago evaporated remnants of a great riverbed snaking its way through the bedrock. Broken rock fragments littered the valley floor, while wind-scored pillars and featureless, faceless statues stood out forlornly at intervals along the valley.

Carved into the bedrock of the valley walls were great effigies, guarding stone slabs, some cracked, others broken into a thousand fragments, others undisturbed. In the centre of the valley floor, a path snaked its way towards a central pyramid, guarded by roofless pillars.

Swinging low, Jayna landed her ship, the downdraft from the engines kicking up a miniature dust storm around it, swirling like a tornado against the burnt rust of the Moraband skies.

As the engines powered down, she stopped and sat back in her chair. She stared blindly at the control yokes, her fingers running over the instruments, but she wasn’t seeing them. Her gaze was inward, focussed on the burning rope in her mind, linking her to another’s across the galaxy, she sought and found her answer.

He knew where she was. He was coming. He was on her tail, only hours away.

He was coming alone.

And she would be ready to meet him.

Suddenly, she pushed away from the pilot’s seat, standing, and striding through the tiny crew’s quarters, pausing only to pull two long, metal cylinders from her satchel. Clipping them to her belt, she pulled her hoodwrap up and around her head, shielding her face from the rough, scathing desert winds outside as she opened the boarding ramp.

Without a backward glance, she stepped out into the Moraband twilight.

* * *

She’d landed only a short walk away from the pyramidal structure dead ahead. The sands shifted and slipped beneath her boots as she trudged onward, mindlessly drawn to the pyramid ahead. As she drew nearer, she could see that its rust-coloured sides were actually just a veneer of sand and dust, and underneath the pyramid’s walls were smooth obsidian, carved with strange symbols and sigils that she instinctively knew was the ancient, dead language of the Sith.

As she walked, she could feel every ounce of awareness she possessed spring to life, the crawling, crackling sensation of being watched with every step only growing stronger, even though she could sense nothing living on the planet. There was another power here, and it was watching her with intent and anticipation. A frigid, plucking wind blew sand into her face, scratching at any exposed skin as she pulled her hoodwrap closer around her face.

Finally, she ascended the steps that led into the ruined pyramid. Activating her lightsaber, its golden blade lit up the pitch-black interior as she walked inside, dauntless in her fascination.

Inside the pyramid, she could dimly make out carved statues and great sarcophagi lining the walls, towering cartouches of Sith hieroglyphics lining the triangular walls, whispering in dread, tempting voices to her through the Force. Her scarred hand and arm ached with cold as her head spun.

 _‘Come to us, lost child. Come and find the answers that you seek…’_ a voice called seductively, yet it wasn’t just one voice. It was a cacophony of voices, all speaking as one as Jayna tensed and winced at the pain of their whispers in her head.

“I seek no answers,” Jayna said aloud, frowning as she forced the dizziness and the spell of fascination away. “Just an end to this.”

_‘They are one and the same, wandering child. Now come!’_

“Who are you?” she demanded, raising her blade high but she was alone in the vast, echoing chamber of the pyramid. As she raised her blade, its light shone on a colossal, oblong sarcophagus above a pit of darkness. She could see deep grooves in the floor where it had been moved, once upon a time. And above the steps leading into the darkness and the stone casket, was a statue, stretching up into the shadows of the pyramid.

Raising her blade higher, Jayna slowly made her way down the stairs and into the darkness beyond.

Eventually the stairs gave way to a sandy floor, a winding corridor leading straight as a blade. She passed gaping doorways on either side, their empty, echoing interiors momentarily revealed in the light of her blade, as she sensed ghostly remnants of great misery and suffering, clinging still to the walls like wraiths. She was walking through a prison.

And many of her brethren had died within its walls, she realised. She could sense their pain, their fear, and their final suffering as many died cursing the Force, the Order, and their captors, while some broke and fell to another fate, one of darkness and servitude. Either way, she was walking through a mausoleum of murdered Jedi past as much as the tomb of a Sith Lord, and she could feel its noisome chill infecting her with every step, but she kept going.

Finally, the corridor ended at a gigantic set of doors, slightly ajar as an icy wind snaked its way through, a breath of air thick with the stench of death and suffering, the rusty ghost-taste of blood heavy on Jayna’s tongue. Above the doors, the carved effigy of a Sith war mask glared down at her, its empty sockets somehow making her feel as watched as she had been outside. Through the doors, she could sense nothing but darkness, but a darkness so absolute it terrified her to contemplate.

Something horrific had happened in there, she knew with blinding certainty.

 _‘Enter, child. Follow the footsteps of so many of your false kindred, and we will show you the truth…’_ the voices commanded again.

“What truth?” Jayna asked aloud, eyes wide. “What’s in there?”

_‘It is the chamber where many of your Jedi brothers and sisters were sacrificed by the Dark Lords of the Sith…your own ancestor Revan killed many in this chamber at the height of his power…just as he was reborn in the crucible of Korriban, so will you be…’_

_‘We’ll see about that,’_ she thought defiantly, feeling a swell of amusement and anticipation from Cal’s side of the bond. He was coming. She didn’t have much time.

Taking a deep breath, Jayna slipped through the opening in the doors and into the chamber beyond.

The sacrificial chamber was as cavernous and desolate, dark stone walls towering into high eaves that she could just about make out in the heights of the pyramid. The walls, floor and pillars were inlaid with some kind of blood-red mineral, casting a dim, rusted-iron shadow over the chamber as she moved deeper inside. Directly opposite the doors was a large slab of obsidian stone, lying ominously in front of four posts set into the floor, energy conduits inlaid in their sides. Jayna guessed they were for restraining prisoners, as she shuddered and turned away from them. She made the mistake of glancing down at the floor, as the realisation of what she saw made her want to vomit.

Cut into the floor was deep channels, not just from the posts but also from the slab, which she realised was an altar. With a shudder, as she followed their course to an artistically rendered symbol in the floor of the chamber between the posts and the altar, she guessed what they were for.

She made the mistake of reaching out, her hand grazing the cold stone of the altar, and her knees nearly buckled as she was hit by a vision, her eyes blindly staring as images of torture and death played out in front of her mind, while a wraith of the blood spilt in this chamber raced through the channels in the floor, outlining the Sith crest inlaid there with dreadful, gory clarity.

Ripping herself free of the vision, she gasped for breath. Stumbling back from the altar, she trembled as she looked around her frantically.

 _‘This was a mistake. What am I doing here?’_ she thought, panic rising in her throat, disgust and revulsion filling her mind as she tried to regain control. It was more than a mistake, she realised. It was a trap.

“What do you want from me!?” she demanded of the ghosts in the air, the ghosts she sensed had been watching her every move since she arrived in the Horuset system. It didn’t take a genius to work out who they were, or what they wanted. They were the wraiths of the Dark Lords of the Sith, long dead but bound to the physical realm by their hatred and desperate desire for life. And they sought her fall, just as the First Brother did.

 _‘For you to accept your destiny, lost child…’_ the voices answered, as Jayna snarled.

“I already have,” she stated firmly. “I am a Jedi.”

The voices laughed, their amusement like knives piercing her mind as she winced but refused to weaken. _‘You are no Jedi. You have hate, you have anger and fear and passion. These could make you powerful if you would but give into them.’_

“And become a slave to the Dark side? Never!” Jayna hissed venomously, turning as she tried to catch sight of whatever amorphous ghost was taunting her.

_‘It is the fate that awaits you at Sidious’s feet, if you do not fall willingly…he will break you and mould you into his image…you cannot resist him…but there is another path…’_

“What path?” she asked, suspiciously.

_‘It is a path already set out before you…it will set you free…give you power above all others…if you would accept it…if you will take his hand…’_

“Take his hand?” Jayna repeated, frowning in confusion before realisation struck. “Cal… that son of a Hutt! You’re here, aren’t you? This is all you!?” she shouted, spinning and she scanned the shadows for him.

But silence was her only answer. In her mind, she could sense his amusement but also his confusion at her rage. Somehow…this wasn’t anything to do with him.

_‘The boy has no knowledge of this conversation… he is but the tool of your ascension, the one who will stand by your side and see your bidding done… your loyal hand…’_

“I don’t understand…what are you talking about?” she said desperately.

_‘There have been many like you across the millennia…creatures of prophecy, of destiny…’_

“The prophecy suggests I will destroy the Sith, not join them,” Jayna pointed out.

_‘That is one path open to you, or it was…now another stands open…another way to find what you seek…’_

“And what do I seek? Power?” she scoffed contemptuously. Power, no matter how seductive, was one thing she’d never wanted. Forced on her, begrudgingly accepted perhaps, but never wanted.

 _‘Freedom…freedom through the only path that speaks true: Power…the power to destroy the Sith…to destroy your father and the stunted creature who serves him…the pretenders to the power and legacy of the Sith… **your legacy** … **your power** … **your throne** …’ _the voices whispered as she shuddered, shaking her head defiantly. But they continued, as she sensed the dark energies of the Force surround her, tugging at her defences with all the invitation of a lover bent on seduction. _‘Through passion, you will find strength. Through strength, you will grow powerful…and victory will be yours. You will be free, with a galaxy at your feet and the Sith will be reborn!’_

“No!” Jayna shouted rebelliously, steadfastly as the voices abruptly dissipated, as she felt the shadowy pressure of their wills disintegrate with them. She was alone, free of their seduction, as she panted for breath. And froze as a familiar voice rang out across the chamber.

“Well, now the light’s better I must say you look ravishing in red,” Cal called over, almost flirtatiously as Jayna spun to face him across the altar, eyes wide. “I’m flattered.”

“Don’t be,” she replied sarcastically. “It was a completely random choice. Thought I’d better go with something other than blonde or brunette.”

Cal chuckled as he stepped further into the room, utterly at ease despite the fact Jayna had automatically tensed, lowering her stance so her centre of gravity was in prime position, hands clasped close to her belt where two sabers hung ready. He was once again without his helmet, but the black and red cloak drifted along the floor behind him. “Did you really think changing your hair colour, or wearing contact lenses, would hide you from me?” he asked, rhetorically. He shrugged insouciantly as he stalked ever nearer. “Maybe from those nitwits at Imperial Intelligence…the other Inquisitors perhaps…but never from me.”

The look he speared her with as he came to a halt on the other side of the altar almost made Jayna gasp aloud from the heat and lust in those molten, golden eyes. Obviously nearly breaking his nose on Nar Shaddaa hadn’t cooled his ardour.

“How’s the nose?” she asked smugly, as his smile only widened.

“All better,” he assured her, gesturing to his clearly pristine, healed nose. “Thank you for your concern.”

“Oh, I wasn’t. Just disappointed, I think it would have improved your bland mug considerably,” she quipped, as he just chuckled, glancing down at his polished boots.

“You always did have an acid tongue,” he admitted tenderly, as he looked up at her again. “Always managing the unexpected. Like this place…” he continued, turning and taking in the execution chamber with raised brows. “Never would have expected you to come here… but then again, I s’pose it must feel like home. It’s in your blood, after all.”

“I don’t know why I chose this place-,” Jayna began coolly, as Cal shook his head with exasperation.

“Don’t you? I think you do,” he interrupted her, raising a gloved hand. “It called to you. The Dark side called to you, and you came.”

“I came to end this,” Jayna snapped, summoning her sabers to hand. With a _hum_ that echoed in the desolate chamber, the sabers in her hands spat forth blades of shining twilight indigo and blazing starlight gold. “I won’t let myself fall into the hands of the Empire… and I won’t let them abuse your gifts anymore either. If there’s ever to be any hope of the Empire’s fall, we have to die.”

Cal stared at her, then broke out into laughter. It was an unhinged, echoing sound, so unlike the low, rumbling chuckle she’d grown used to on the _Mantis_ , but a loud cackle that made her wince to hear it. “You almost had me there, good one, love,” he told her, wiping tears from his eyes. “You’re a born survivor, Jayna. Self-sacrifice isn’t in your nature.”

“Once, maybe,” she admitted, with a self-deprecating grin. “but a lot has changed since then. I have no other choice.”

“There is always another choice,” Cal said, with a knowing smile, raising a hand to her as the bond sparked between them with heat, tugging at her resolve. “Another path to take…another way to achieve your heart’s desire.”

“I’ve heard this pitch before,” Jayna replied coldly, one brow raised as she guessed he had heard, or at least caught some of her bizarre conversation with the Sith spirits haunting the ruins before he arrived. “It’s already gotten old, try again!”

Cal simply chuckled, glancing down at his boots coyly, like a young boy in the presence of his schoolboy crush. It irritated Jayna, putting her off-kilter as she waited for him to pounce. “We do have things to discuss,” he said, raising his head again as she brandished her sabers. His eyes flashed as he spotted his saber, and he laughed delightedly. “You kept it!”

“I did,” Jayna breathed, sadly as her heart ached. “In memory of the person you once were and could still be again. It’s not too late.”

Cal just shook his head. “There is no going back, not now,” he told her, his voice tinged with sadness. “I almost miss the naïve fool I was, but his sacrifice allowed me to be reborn. To do what is necessary-,”

“By serving the Empire!?” Jayna spat.

“Why can’t you see!?” Cal exploded, yelling the words across the altar at her with rage and frustration as she just backed away, baring her teeth. “But I can see there’s no talking sense to you, not yet. Not until those are out of the way and you’ve got this mad, sacrificial nerf calf idea out of your system,” he said, calmer now as he nodded towards the sabers in her hands, while he reached for the hilt hanging from his belt. It was a double-ended saber, much like the one in Jayna’s hand, but fixed within a sharpened circular frame like the ones she’d seen both Trilla and the Ninth Sister use. A scarlet red blade ignited from both ends as he brandished it expertly, settling comfortably into his battle-ready stance as he affixed her with a predatory, arrogant grin. “Come on then!”

With a shout, Jayna rushed him, leaping over the altar and over his head as she brought her sabers down on his back. He flipped his saber, protecting his flank as he spun and twisted, and then she was forced to block a cut to her lower legs, attempting to hamstring her. In a blink of an eye, the other end of the scarlet red blade was arcing towards her arm, as she blocked the lateral strike with her other saber, dancing away as Cal advanced.

Flipping one blade round so she held it in a reverse grip, she spun and slashed, turning her body into a lethal tornado of light and heat as Cal was forced on the back foot, fending off her blows before dropping into a reverse-ankle sweep, forcing her into a flip to avoid being tripped up. As she landed, Cal’s boot hit her squarely in the chest, sending her flying back several feet until she landed painfully on her backside. Aching, she looked up at him as he paused, eying her with patient amusement.

“Someone’s been practicing their Jar’Kai,” he called, tauntingly. “I’m impressed.”

“I don’t care,” Jayna snarled, jack-knifing to her feet as she settled into an aggressive stance. Cal re-directed her charge, cunningly flipping his body past her blades as he parried them and turned to face her once more.

“But you’re forgetting one key factor,” he continued playfully. “I’ve got about fifteen years of training and experience on you, Jayna. You can’t beat me, not like this.”

“You’re so arrogant,” Jayna hissed disbelievingly. She stabbed towards his chestplate, following that up with a low slash to his legs as he blocked, but he danced out of the way. Jayna spun and lashed out, sending her golden blade arcing towards his arm but then he reached out, his hand splayed and… stopped the blade in its tracks with the Force. She could feel the pressure on the blade as it was pushed back, forcing her back a step as she stared at him, wide-eyed and panting as he simply smiled.

“Am I?” he asked bitingly. “But you’ve certainly improved. Again?”

With a growl, Jayna re-centred herself and leapt towards him, her blade stabbing forward like a spear of indigo light as he parried once, then twice as she followed up with a slice to his midsection with her yellow blade. With a cunning twist of her hands, she managed to trap both ends of his saber, one underneath her golden blade, the other held up by Cal’s old saber, placing pressure on both ends so he couldn’t move.

The move drew them close as Jayna looked up into Cal’s burning eyes, as he bared his teeth at her in a primal, delighted grin. “Nice,” he complimented her, before he twisted, turning his back on her and driving his saber up horizontally in front of him, crossing his arms at the wrists so he now stood in the circle of her arms with his back to her chest. She had barely a moment’s warning, a surge of intent across the Force bond, then he slammed his head back into her. She was short enough that he didn’t hit her face, but the blow still sent her reeling as she was forced to drop Cal’s saber and stumbled back, just barely hanging onto her own.

With a desperate block, she parried his spinning cut to her midsection, but was forced back as he followed up with another to her legs. Parrying desperately, weaving complex velocities from Soresu and Ataru as she leapt and danced around him, she waited for an opening, but none came. Cal’s own use of Djem So and Makashi was too strong, too balanced for her to break through and she bitterly cursed her own lack of knowledge.

As she caught Cal’s scarlet blade flying towards her left arm out of the corner of her eye, she desperately flung her hand out, pouring forth all her power to stop the blade in its tracks, just as he had done to hers. Cal’s blade hit an invisible wall of pressure, its strength so great it almost made the blade appear to bend as Cal gritted his teeth and tried to push through.

Baring her own, Jayna pushed back, sending him stumbling a few feet away as she reached out and called Cal’s old saber to her. It slapped into her palm, activating with a _hum_ as it re-joined the golden brilliance of her own. Panting, Cal looked up from where he’d been forced to one knee, smiling with animalistic exhilaration and pride.

“That’s my girl,” he growled heatedly. “I love you.”

“Shut up!” Jayna growled, twirling her blades threateningly. His eyes flitted to the indigo blade in one hand, smirking knowingly.

“Planning to kill me with my own blade, my love? Now that’s cold,” he added, as she inhaled brokenly.

“I’ll use it to defeat you, but I won’t kill you with it,” she promised him fervently. He cocked his head, his smile fading slightly.

“You really mean that, don’t you?” he breathed, as he searched her eyes. “Or… you think you do. But you’ll soon find out that just as you can’t defeat me like this, you can’t kill me any more than I could kill you, my love.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” she taunted him, slashing at his head as he ducked and tackled her, driving his shoulder deep into her midriff as she gasped, but refused to drop her sabers again. His move sent them tumbling towards the ground, pinned by his weight as she gazed up at him dazedly.

“You accuse me of being delusional, but you should really listen to yourself,” he told her, his breath huffing against her lips. “I told you there were things we needed to discuss. And you picked the perfect location. The spirits of the ancient Sith lords hate your father almost as much as you do. They’ll never betray us to him.”

“I don’t want to hear another damn word out of your mouth!” Jayna snarled, enraged by his reference to her complicated origins, lunging for him but he darted back, reigniting his saber as its blood-red sheen glinted off his citrine eyes.

His eyes hardened as he settled back into guard. “Where is the holocron?” he demanded as she leapt towards him and slashed at his neck.

“Gone. I destroyed it. The Empire will never get their hands on a single name on that list,” she growled with smug satisfaction. Cal’s eyes glinted.

“Good girl,” he hissed, as she stopped, dumbstruck. He cocked his head, eyes dancing at her over the locked blades between them. “What? Did you honestly believe I was after that holocron? I’m **_glad_** it’s gone. You were right before.”

“What?” Jayna gasped, utterly bemused.

“When you said children shouldn’t be forced into something they couldn’t choose, to have the choice made for them,” he explained, his face and eyes softening as he stared down at her. Her eyes searched his, before her jaw firmed defiantly. He smiled tenderly. “You don’t believe me?”

“Something tells me your master wouldn’t be too pleased to hear you making such statements,” she retorted. “He was quite keen to take it, last time we met.”

“I hadn’t forgotten,” Cal replied, with a barely imperceptible wince as she pushed him away, unlocking their blades. “He wanted it destroyed too, if for other reasons. If there’s one thing Vader fears, it’s competition for what little power he has left.”

“And here I thought you were Vader’s personal whipping boy? Or is it the Emperor’s?” she asked caustically, as he chuckled.

“Vader set me free,” he admitted, with a quiet fervency that unnerved her. “He was most…thorough in breaking me, or so he thought. But I know his secret… I know how to defeat him now…”

“I guess it’s true what they say… treachery is truly the way of the Sith,” Jayna growled, bringing her sabers to bear. He shrugged casually.

“It is the way of the universe,” he countered lightly. “Vader wants us both dead and tried to use me to do it, to draw you out so he could strike us both down in one blow. Your father wants you to kill me in the hopes that it will turn you. But I know something they don’t.”

“Oh really? And what would that be, pray tell?” Jayna snapped back, lunging for him as he danced out of reach.

“I know what **_we_** are, Jayna. What was put into motion the first time you reached into me and gave me some of your own power,” he asserted, a fanatical gleam in his eyes. “Inquisitors aren’t usually granted access to some of the more…sensitive Sith texts the Emperor has in his possession,” he explained, circling her as she listened, entranced despite herself. “Once I broke through the agony of the reconditioning process, I was granted access to these by the Emperor. He took me under his wing, saw in me the means to draw you to him but even he… doesn’t fully comprehend what he’s done.”

“And what is that?” Jayna demanded icily.

“By giving me what he believed would only tie me to the Dark Side further, he sowed the seeds of his own destruction,” he replied, drawing a burning line in the stone floor of the chamber with the tip of his saber. “You see, I held out for… a very long time. No matter how hard they beat me, shocked me, deprived me of food, water, air, heat, light… I held out. Even when I had Vader rooting around in my head, trying to forcibly yank me to the Dark side, I stayed strong,” he continued, raising one hand to tap the side of his head pointedly. “You were what kept me strong.”

“Until… what? You finally broke?” she asked, in an aching whisper, unable to seize the advantage he was granting her and strike him down while he was distracted.

Cal snorted a laugh, huffing quietly, his eyes blindly staring into nothing as he lost himself to the past. “Not quite…I had… an epiphany… the way to defeat the Emperor and Vader was never by holding to the same ideals and ancient, dusty wisdom that failed to defeat them the first time…but by giving in to them instead. By using their own weapons against them, by fighting fire with fire-,”

“You’re insane!” Jayna snapped, tearing herself out of the spell he’d cast over her. With a growl, she lunged for him once more as he blocked and aggressively parried, knocking her blade aside even as she swiped at his other flank. “You’re betraying everything you believe in! And for what? Some pipe dream that you’ll become strong enough to destroy the most powerful Sith lords in the galaxy!?”

“They **_were_** the most powerful Sith… but there are two more now with the capacity to become more powerful than they ever were,” Cal growled, his eyes flashing with frustration. “You and me, Jayna… together, with our bond, we can destroy them.”

“You’re insane,” Jayna repeated, as Cal rolled his eyes.

“Repeating it won’t make it any truer,” he retorted coldly. With that, he unleashed a flurry of strikes against her that had her pinned on one knee within moments, her blades crossed to hold his off, her teeth bared and gritted with the strain as he pushed his full weight onto her. Across the flashing, sparking length of their crossed blades, Cal smiled bestially down at her, teeth bared as his eyes flashed. “C’mon, Jayna. You have the power to bring me to my knees…use it! You can do so much better than this!” he goaded her.

Exhausted, heartsick with grief, anguish, loneliness and rage, Jayna let him as she pushed back with all her might, knocking him off-balance as she spun and kicked out, her boot heel smashing into his chest as he was knocked back completely, his blade dropping to the floor as it deactivated. With a snarling cry, Jayna reached out, both in the Force and with her hand as she dropped Cal’s old saber and poured all her power into her battle meditation. Finding the strands that tied her to Cal, she yanked harshly, driving him to his knees as she crossed a line she’d never dared to walk over before, driven by rage and the darkness within her finally taking hold, as she gave into it for a moment.

Cal slumped over gasping, dropping his saber, his body as boneless and limp as a puppet under her power as she hissed, contracting her hand into a clawed fist. He gasped in agony, raising pained but adoring eyes to hers. “That’s it… my love…there it is… the power that could topple an Empire…!” he panted as she stopped, her breath as laboured as his as awareness and realisation returned to her eyes, her mouth gaping in horror as she realised what she’d done.

Dropping her saber, its verdant blade disappeared as it hit the ground with a _clang_ of alloy on stone, as she stumbled back and slumped against the sacrificial altar, staring at him. “I don’t… I couldn’t…” she breathed, but she couldn’t deny that she did, she **_had_** …used her battle meditation to bring Cal to his knees. Not just influenced, not just inspired, or unnerved but controlled, dominated him as effortlessly as he were a fly she’d swatted from the air. “What’s happening to me?” she whispered, staring at her hands, unable to look at him as he slowly pulled himself to his feet.

“You’re slowly breaking free of the limitations you placed on yourself, my love,” he whispered tenderly, his voice husky and raw with pain and exhaustion of his own. Reaching into his belt, he pulled a vibroknife from its sheath, holding it out to her. “If you’re so set on your duty, on being the good little Jedi and damning the galaxy to the Emperor’s rule… then do it. Kill me!”

With a stumbling stride, he pinned her against the altar, still holding the knife out invitingly as her eyes flicked between it and him. His body was as hard as rock against hers, burning like a furnace as she trembled unwillingly, her body responding to the heat in his eyes.

“Stop it,” she breathed, unable to look at the blade anymore. Shaking her head, she closed her eyes tightly. “Stop it, stop it… please!?”

In her head, she felt the Force bond flare into full radiance, reaching for and enveloping them both as they were powerless against it. If anything, Cal seemed to revel in it, bombarding her with image after image, sensation after sensation, from their memories.

_The feeling of drenched fabric shifting as she kissed Cal for the first time on Zeffo, pulling him from the echoes of the past…the wind in her hair as Cal kissed her on Kashyyyk, riding on the back of a legendary bird…the heat of his body against hers, the relief surging through her veins at being reunited after losing each other on the cliffs of Dathomir…his lips on her palm, trailing along her bare, scarred arm, chasing away the icy chill of the Dark side…his arms holding her against the bulkhead, pinning her as he kissed away her doubts and her fear…his weight atop her on that cot… the feel of hot water trickling over hypersensitive skin… silken red hair, bright as flame, between her fingers as she kissed him in a crystal cave on Ilum…the tenderness and absolute faith in her heart as they kissed on Dathomir…that last night spent in each other’s arms on the Mantis…the weight of the arms pinning her to the ground on Felucia…his hands on her body as he played her as expertly, as knowingly as a long-standing lover across the bond…the copper taste of his blood in her mouth as they kissed passionately on that rooftop on Nar Shaddaa… the heat, the urgency, the desperate need for more filling her soul with every embrace until it was too late to turn away-_

“Enough!” Jayna shouted, expelling him forcibly from her head as she yanked the dagger from him with the Force, bringing it to his exposed throat in one smooth movement. Cal simply tilted his neck, exposing more of his pale throat above the collar of his tunic, his eyes open and inviting.

“Do it, my love…end this,” he whispered hoarsely as she stood there, pinned at his mercy but with his life in her hands. “Or don’t… and accept your destiny.”

In the Force, the rope connecting them shone as effervescently as a star, radiant and all-consuming as Jayna felt her heart beating wildly in her chest. Every cell in her body burned to move, to act, to do something, **_anything_** , to break this deadlock as she veered violently on the thin line she had walked every day since discovering her power on Bracca.

She watched, mind oddly detached, as she dug the blade into his neck, putting slow, gradual pressure on it until a bead of ruby red blood welled up along its edge, then a line of Cal’s lifeblood as she drew it across his neck, but not deep enough to end his life. Jayna was filled with a primal urge to bend her head to the wound, to lick it away, to absorb him into her very body so he could never be taken from her again. So, they would never be parted again.

She stopped just before the knife nicked his windpipe, meeting his eyes as they burned down at her, filled with pain, pride and an all-encompassing desire that would devour her whole, if she let it. “Together, my love, we will bring the Emperor and the Sith to an end…we will wreak vengeance for all the lives they’ve taken, the innocents they’ve sacrificed, the light they snuffed out,” Cal growled, his voice low and intent as he leant towards her, uncaring of the knife at his throat. “The Empire will bow before us. We will bring a new order to the galaxy and we will never be alone again.”

“How would we ever have the power to do such a thing? What **_are_** we, Cal?” she breathed, as his eyes sparked at her use of his name. Her eyes searched his beseechingly, her feelings of exhaustion and loneliness overwhelming the part of her that was screaming at her, the tiny spark of light left in her being steadily drowned under a flood of desire and shadow.

“We’re a dyad in the Force, Jayna…the power of one in two individuals…bonded by the Force across time and space…with power unseen for generations…alone we could never be strong enough, but together? Together, we will make empires tremble and fall to their knees at our feet,” he replied, passionately. “The galaxy will worship their empress, and I will stand by your side for the rest of eternity. You have my love and devotion forever, Jayna.”

“Swear it!” she suddenly snarled, lunging forward a few inches as their lips brushed. “Swear you’ll never leave me again… that we’ll do this, together…”

“Always, I swear it,” he growled, coating the knife with his blood as he leant into it. “I will never leave your side…and we will do this. Together.”

For a single moment, Jayna hesitated, teetering on the brink of a cliff’s edge as she stared up into loving, burning yellow eyes, then she let herself fall. She took the knife away at the same moment Cal’s arms twined around her waist, pulling her into him as his lips fell to hers. She heard the distant metallic _clatter_ of the knife as she dropped it on the altar behind them, then her world was swamped under a tidal wave of heat and passion as Cal kissed her devouringly, desperately as she sank her hands in his hair.

His gloved hands ran down her body, imprinting her with their heat, then he grasped her backside, kneading evocatively before he pulled her up against him, letting her feel the hard outline of his arousal against the cradle of her hips. He broke the kiss, raising one hand from the slope of her backside to peel back the high collar of her jacket, marking her throat with teeth and tongue as she gasped, swaying and arching deeper into his arms.

“How?” she gasped, pulling him away from her neck so she could stare into his eyes. “How do we do this?”

“Through a lie so complete, they will never see through it,” he told her, releasing her from his grip to unbuckle his chestplate, unclipping his cloak so it crumpled to the floor. Finding and holding her gaze, he smiled knowingly as he unbuckled his gauntlets, tugging his gloves off next. Pulling his tunic apart, he shrugged his strong shoulders until it fell to the floor with the rest, leaving him in his undershirt. “By embracing the darkness, by burying your old self so deeply, she can never come to light again. Only by leaving everything behind, killing the past, letting yourself be reborn, will this work… are you with me?”

Drunk on passion and the sheer relief of being back in Cal’s arms, Jayna searched his face for any sign of deceit or manipulation even as her mind struggled to think coherently. For a moment, she felt pure revulsion at what he was suggesting, but then it was swamped by a heady dose of freedom and desire. To let everything go, to walk away from all the expectations, the legacies, the poisonous ghosts of the past… to be free of it, at last. She wanted nothing more.

Sliding her hands down from where they’d been tangled in his hair, she trailed them down until her fingertips grazed the seam where his undershirt was tucked into his breeches. She felt his breath quicken as she slowly began to pull it free, looking up at him lustfully as she said, “I’m with you. Show me the way.”

He smiled, a mad, cunning, proudly besotted smile as she pulled his undershirt over his head, revealing his pale, scarred torso to her eyes and hands. Her eyes alit on a small, perfectly round burn scar on his lower ribcage, as she felt a wave of comfort from him at the sight, and the distress she felt at the memories trying to rise up and drag her back under. Pushing them back down, she pulled her eyes away from his saber scar, and up his chest to his throat. A tiny rivulet of blood trickled down his chest from where she’d cut him with the knife, as she lowered her head and kissed down its path, smearing his pale skin with it as he shuddered and arched against her, his hands sliding into her hair and gripping as he pulled her back to his kiss. Jayna felt the shadows beckon, desire making her reckless as she finally gave in, stopped thinking and just reacted as Cal began to unfasten her jacket, tearing it down her arms before hiking her vest up impatiently. She felt the tear as he ripped her breast band in two, then she gasped aloud as he bent his head and trailed heated, lustful kisses down her neck, her sternum until he fastened his lips around one puckered, hardened nipple. She pressed herself into him instinctively, running a hand through his hair, holding him to her while with the other, she ran over his strong chest and arm, gliding over the tense, bunched muscles of his shoulders and upper back as he moved against her.

Twining one arm around her back to hold her steady as he feasted on her breasts, he trailed the other hand down her torso, down over the tensing, bucking plane of her still clothed stomach and down, sliding two fingers between her legs, feeling the moisture soaking through the fabric of her trousers. _‘Gods, you’re so wet already…’_ he whispered in her head as she cried out, bucking her hips into his hand as he pressed hard. _‘I want to taste you.’_

Without warning, Cal lifted his head, the cool air making Jayna gasp as it raced over her breasts, the skin moist and hypersensitive from Cal’s attentions. Bending his knees, he removed his hand from between her legs, hoisting her up onto the obsidian altar. The height of the slab put her face level to his, as he leaned in and kissed her again, pulling her hands from his hair and back as he gently pushed them to rest by her hips. He stepped back to unlace and slip her boots off, taking her socks with them before he rested his hands on her waist. Meeting her eyes, he waited with a slight smile, as she panted for breath.

Without conscious thought, she took her own weight as he slipped his fingers under the waistband of her trousers and underwear, peeling them away until she sat on that slab, naked, as she trembled in the cool air of the chamber. “A fitting throne, I think,” Cal remarked with a lustful, cocky smirk she both hated and loved. “So many Jedi met their end on this altar… and now, so will you. But unlike them, you will be reborn…” he trailed off, sinking to his knees as he pulled her closer to the edge of the altar, wedging her shoulders apart with his knees as Jayna’s heart raced, nervousness and anticipation lighting a fire in her blood as she looked down at Cal’s fiery head between her legs. He looked up at her adoringly, his eyes afire as he swallowed hard. “Let me taste you, let me worship you, my empress?”

Jayna looked down at him, a fire growing in her own blood as she bared her teeth, snaking one hand through his hair as she pulled his face back to her wet, exposed folds. She felt him exhale tremulously, the rush of air on her sensitive labia making her squirm and gasp before he leant in and buried his mouth against her.

The feel of his tongue against her was shocking and enthralling, making her body writhe and arch uncontrollably against him as he clasped her thighs, holding her steady as she leant her weight on her hands, pressing them into the cold stone against her skin, gasping incoherently. She felt like her skin was too constricting, her blood felt like it wanted to break free with how fast it was racing through her veins, pulsing in time with the tongue lapping at her folds, circling her wet, engorged clit as she arched her head back with abandon. _‘Why didn’t we do this before…?’_ she wondered distractedly, as Cal chuckled against her, drawing another moan from her lips.

 _‘I **was** thinking about doing this… so many times…especially when we were stuck in that cave on Ilum,’_ Cal replied, as she hissed sharply, raking her nails across his scalp as he groaned against her, the vibration making her toes curl as he sucked her clit at the same time. _‘Careful love, you’ll tear my hair out.”_

 _‘You’d deserve it!’_ she retorted half-heartedly, a teasing smile on her lips. _‘Is that vanity I hear in your tone, First Brother? Is someone a little too attached to their hair?’_

He didn’t reply, just grazed her clit with his teeth as she cried out, her mind gone blank as he intensified the heat and tension holding her enthralled another notch, as she panted above him. Grasping her legs, he slung them over his shoulders as she leant further back on her arms, so she was all but reclining as he used the new angle to sweep his tongue the length of her opening, dipping inside her just a little with each pass as her body lifted and shuddered with every flick. Her nerves leapt, excruciatingly sensitive, with every pass, every lap, every lick and flick of his tongue on her drenched core, his fingertips drawing soothing little circles on her taut thighs where he held her still, open, exposed and vulnerable to whatever he wanted to do to her. He was no expert in this, she knew it, could sense it in the eager but careful way he sucked and licked between her thighs, but he knew her well. Well enough to remember what she liked, what had brought her pleasure before, when he only used his hands, and inventive enough under all that Jedi stoicism to bring it all to bear now, when he had no inhibitions left, nothing holding him back as he left her shaking and mindless under his kiss.

As the tension rose and fell like waves breaking on the shore, her muscles rippled and contracted with every caress, building to an explosion of heat and relief as the pressure abruptly eased inside of her, wringing a wanton, uninhibited cry from her lips as she grasped Cal’s hair, pulling him tightly against her as she relaxed.

Trembling uncontrollably in the aftermath, she laid back on her elbows, panting heavily, wincing as Cal pressed a gentle, soothing kiss against her hypersensitive flesh, pressing another to her abdomen as he tenderly shifted her legs off his shoulders, slinging them around his hips as he began to stand from his kneeling position, remaining bent over her as he trailed another kiss to her navel, probing the slight indentation evocatively with his tongue as she gasped and trembled, sliding her hands into his hair again, caressing possessively as his hands crept up her sides, holding her limp body steady as he trailed more burning, open-mouthed kisses up her torso, lingering on her sternum where she knew he could feel her heart pounding under his lips, before raising his head to hers. She rose to meet him, drawing him fearlessly into an ardent, hungry kiss as he groaned against her, the hardened bulge in his breeches pressing against her as he pressed his body into hers yearningly. From his nose to his chin was damp and slick, tasting of herself as she moaned and eagerly drew him closer.

 _‘You taste exquisite, love. Bittersweet but exquisite,’_ he told her across the bond as he drew back, molten yellow eyes burning with fervent lust. His naked chest pressed against hers, igniting a delicious friction against her skin where she felt the scant traces of hair rubbing against her. Reaching up to clasp his fingers in her hair, he pressed another kiss on her, arching her neck back with his hold on her hair so he could kiss her so intensely, his tongue thrusting into her mouth, chasing hers and drawing her into an addictive game of advance and retreat she remembered so well, she found herself shifting restlessly as the desire for more grew and strengthened with every press of his hot tongue inside her, still tasting faintly of her arousal as she moaned into his mouth.

Taking one hand from the stone, she trailed it down Cal’s torso, lingering on the hardened peaks of his chest, feeling his groan as she played and tweaked with the tips of her fingers to see if it achieved the same reaction from him as he did to her. He didn’t disappoint, as he bucked his hips into her convulsively, as if his body was utterly outside his control, the fabric of his breeches rasping against the still sensitive inner faces of her thighs as she gently bit his lower lip, making him groan as she sensed the wound she inflicted on him on Nar Shaddaa sting. Breaking the kiss, he raised his free hand, the one not holding her by her hair, and trailed it teasingly down her body, tracing invisible, swirling designs over her dewed, aching skin until he dipped his fingertips into the heated, wet folds between her legs. Jayna’s fingers spasmed and stopped their play abruptly as she met his gaze, holding it intently as he dipped and slid his fingers through her honeyed, swollen folds, finding her entrance and curling one finger into her, something almost daring in his eyes as her jaw firmed defiantly. Closing her eyes, trusting him with her body once more, Jayna inclined her head to his neck, pressing an open-mouthed kiss to the shallow incision on his throat, sucking the tender, vulnerable flesh around it as he groaned and began to thrust his finger into her. As he stroked inside her, her body lifted into every thrust, hips gyrating, mindlessly seeking as he skilfully built another climax inside her, stretching her as he added a second finger, easing the ache of his invasion with soothing kisses against her hair.

Determined not to simply lie there and take it, Jayna resumed her teasing, playful trail down his torso, running her fingernails over the taut, flickering muscles of his abdomen as he hissed in a breath, before she reversed her hand, sliding it past the loosened waistband of his breeches, finding and palming the hot weight of his cock inexpertly, as he groaned and arched against her, the steady rhythm of his fingers inside her faltering for a moment. It didn’t take her long to remember just how much pressure he liked, restricted as she was by his breeches, twisting her fingers around him as she felt him grow thicker and harder in her hand.

 _‘If you keep doing that, love, this isn’t going to last much longer,’_ Cal growled in her head, drawing a wicked smile from her as she raised her head and met his eyes.

 _‘Why should you get to have all the fun? I think I’d quite enjoy the sight of you on your knees, completely unravelled and mindless because of me,’_ she retorted as his eyes flamed, and he lowered his head to kiss her feverishly. Releasing her hair, his hand shot down, yanking hers from his breeches as he hissed at the loss of pressure, as she moaned and arched into him after a particularly teasing slide of his fingers deep inside her.

 _‘This isn’t about me, not this time…’_ he told her as their lips parted, something serious replacing the lust in his eyes for a moment as he nuzzled her, their foreheads pressed together. He pressed his thumb against her clit, twisting his fingers inside her as she gasped, releasing him to clutch his arms, her balance dangerously precarious as she shook and trembled against him.

 _‘So, is this going to be how you ‘torture’ me to the Dark side?’_ she asked, with a hint of acerbity as he pulled back and stared at her. _‘Or do I have one of those chairs waiting for me again?’_

 _‘You will never see the inside of a torture cell again, my love,’_ he told her, his words hard and cold, steadfast as durasteel even as his fingers continued to play and stroke inside her, building her arousal so she felt like she was floating. _‘There’ll be no need. You’re falling of your own free will…by the time we arrive on Coruscant, there will be no doubt in anyone’s mind that you’ve given yourself to the Dark side.’_

Aloud, Cal raised his head. “Once we do this, once I take you, there’ll be no turning back,” he said, almost warningly as she gazed up at him dazedly, her mind floating on a burning plane of pleasure, desire for more, and an awareness of her own body so intense, she could feel it changing her connection to the Force. Deepening it, strengthening it, re-forging it into something unbreakable, binding her to the shadows just as it bound her to Cal.

But it wasn’t finished yet. There was one last step to take.

Leaning up as far as she could, Jayna pressed a fleeting, tender kiss against Cal’s lips. “Then finish it. I’m not running away, not this time,” she whispered harshly against his lips, pushing all recrimination, all doubts and fears aside as she recklessly plunged forward on this new path.

Dark brown met burning yellow as their eyes met and held for one, infinitesimal moment. Then their lips met once more, barely parting longer than they needed to breathe before they kissed again, as Cal’s fingers thrust harder between her legs, stealing her breath away as she began to fall back onto the hard, cold stone of the altar.

Letting her go, slipping his fingers from her, Cal raised a hand, calling his crumpled cloak to him with the Force. Folding it up into a vaguely square bundle, he reached down and placed it under Jayna’s head, his hand trailing desirously across her shivering body before he raised his hands to his waistband, undoing the few fastenings Jayna had left untouched. Not bothering to take his breeches or boots off, he pushed them down far enough that he could free himself, then he pulled himself up on the altar, reaching for Jayna as he laid down on his back, pulling her over him so she sat astride his body, his head cushioned from the hard, cold stone by his folded up cloak.

Reaching under her, she pulled his cock free from his breeches, feeling its hot, hard weight between her folds as she rocked her hips downwards against it, his breath stuttering as she touched him, then he moaned, arching his head back as she rode him, coating him with her slick arousal, catching her clit with every rotation of her hips as she gasped and cried out in abandon. She felt his hands on her hips, stilling her movement as she opened her eyes and gazed down at him as he inhaled tremulously and nodded.

Lifting from him slightly, she held herself above him as he reached under and positioned himself against her opening. They paused, staring into each other’s eyes as they hovered on the brink, as Jayna inhaled shakily. _‘I love you, Cal. I always did and I never stopped. I never will,’_ she told him as he exhaled with a moan, his eyes afire as his free hand tightened on her hip. Steadily, she sank down until she felt the broad, hard head of his cock, wet with her own arousal and his, breach her, sliding in slowly, increment by increment, inch by maddening inch as her body shook and trembled, aching as he filled her until she could slide down no more, and he was seated deep within her. She’d been prepared and relaxed, willing and unafraid as she’d taken him inside her, so she felt only some discomfort, a stretching sensation and a welling feeling of pressure in her abdomen as she paused, panting softly as Cal’s hand caressed the skin of her hips comfortingly.

 _‘I love you,’_ he told her, simply and heartfelt, a shining ember of light against the darkness that surrounded them in this cursed, abandoned chamber. Then he reached for the knife that had laid discarded and forgotten on the altar, raising it so it flashed in the dim light of the chamber. Jayna didn’t move, simply waited, sitting astride Cal, impaled on his cock as her body adjusted to the hot, heavy weight of him inside her, as solid and unyielding as durasteel. She had a feeling it was a sensation she would grow addicted to, with him at least.

 _‘What is this?’_ she asked, her eyes flitting from the knife in his hand to him.

 _‘A Sith blood ritual,’_ he explained. _‘The Sith have written about the possibility of a dyad emerging since the end of their Empire. Darth Zannah conceived of this ritual, binding two individuals together through the Dark side and the sharing of their blood… but it requires more than blood and power to work. Only a true dyad will emerge from this ritual stronger than before, their power amplified beyond the scopes of ordinary Force adepts. It will only grow stronger, and so we will grow stronger until our enemies couldn’t hope to oppose us.’_

Raising his hand, he drew a thin line across his palm with the knife’s tip, then swapped hands and did the same with the other palm. She felt the sting of the knife’s edge against his palm, a phantom tingle on her own hands before he offered the bloodstained hilt to her. Wordlessly, she took it, slicing the blade across her palm shallowly, wincing at the pain of the cut before she repeated the move on her other hand and dropped the knife over the side of the altar. Meeting his eyes, blazing with pride, anticipation and desire as he raised his hands in front of her, she reached out and pressed her hands together with his, their fingers clasped tightly so their knuckles turned white as the twin cuts on their palms stung with the pressure.

In the Force, currents of darkness rippled and swelled until they became a tidal wave, as between them the coils of the Force bond blazed with power, binding them indissolubly as they gasped in unison at the sensation. Tentatively, Jayna began to move atop Cal, rotating her hips as the movement pressed their hands together ever tighter, mixing their blood as it trickled from the cuts on their palms.

Bending her head, Jayna sought his lips, kissing him tenderly as she began to rock her hips harder into him, finding a rhythm that stroked somewhere deep inside her, a patch of nerve endings that sparked and flamed with every thrust, every glide of his cock inside her as she panted into their kiss. In her head, she was aware of both her own pleasure and his, as he lent back until he was lying prone against the altar, using their clasped hands to pull her down atop him as he bent his knees and thrust into her harder, drawing a strangled moan from between their joined lips.

It was an odd feeling, to feel both her body and his as if they were one being. She could feel the hot, wet clamp of her muscles around him, drawing him deep with every thrust of his hips and every writhing, gyrating rock of hers. She felt his surge of lust and passion as she raised their clasped hands and used her position atop him to pin his arms above his head, riding him with greater strength, greater urgency as the last of her discomfort eased and then there was nothing but passion, pleasure and the growing excitement under her skin, racing in her blood as she felt a strange heat spark into being at the place where their hands joined, their blood mingling, spreading outward, power rushing in its wake.

She sensed when Cal felt it too, his breath stuttering against her lips as Jayna unclasped their hands, but the feeling didn’t ebb, didn’t fade. Instead, it only seemed to grow stronger, chasing its way along her veins, infecting every inch of her body as it did his. Closing her eyes, Jayna cast aside all doubt, all fear and the last of her inhibitions as she let the part of her mind that had always been a survivor do what it did best: survive, adapt, and accept this sudden upending of her world.

She gave herself over to it completely, riding him with wanton abandon as she rotated her hips, feeling his groan as he lowered his hands to her hips, just holding her as he joined her in the dance, matching her rhythm as he thrust deeply into her with every downward stroke of her hips. She could feel his desire and awe as he watched her abandon, watched her writhe atop him without holding anything back, pride and love in every caress of his hands over her skin, painting it with his blood.

She sensed the surge of intent as he sat up suddenly, pulling her tightly into the cradle of his arms as she stopped, opening her eyes to look down at him, raising her hands to caress his cheek and arm, clutching his back as he deliberately moved again, making her breath stutter as their lips hovered, brushing against each other, so close they were all but kissing.

“Peace is a lie, there is only passion,” he whispered against her lips.

“Through passion, I gain strength,” she whispered back, the words falling into her mind like raindrops. She wasn’t sure if they were from his thoughts, or if the words were somehow buried deeply in her subconscious mind. With every whispered word against his lips, their bodies strove together, chasing that cliff’s edge of pleasure, a brink she could never return from. But where she had once feared the jump and freefall to follow, she raced towards it now with anticipation, with desire and with urgency. The cold stone of the altar was hard against her knees, her muscles sore and stretched from the unfamiliar burn of Cal inside her, but she could feel that pain only making her stronger, power flooding her veins as she gave herself over to it.

Together, they repeated the words that would bind them to the Dark side, a near silent vow whispered between brushing lips. “Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory, through victory my chains are broken. The Force shall set me free!” they breathed in unison, shuddering as their bodies began to tremble with the force of release, Cal’s hips stuttering uncontrollably as Jayna’s nails bit deep into his back, drawing small half-moons with his blood, twining one hand with his hair as he bent his head to her neck and bit down on the spot where he had marked her before.

She cried out as release swept through her, triggering his own as he followed her over the cliff’s edge, falling with the exhilaration of surrender as her hand tightened in his hair and her eyes shut tightly against the peace that swept through them both, leaving them shaking and replete in the aftermath.

She felt the pressure of Cal’s lips, soothing away the ache of his bite in her neck, before he raised his head and kissed her, but she couldn’t sense any exhaustion in him. Nor in her, she realised. She was alive with power, sparking in every cell as she felt the Force around her with a clarity, she’d never known was possible. She’d almost been blind before, in comparison to how easily she touched it now, the threads of power in her hands more tangible than ever before. She felt like empires would truly topple and bend the knee before her, with the power at her fingertips. At **_their_** fingertips…

At the thought, Jayna drew back and looked down at Cal, gazing down at him with the warm brown of her eyes replaced by blazing, molten yellow.

Around them, the Force trembled and resonated with the power of their bond, of the dyad, ripples spreading out across it like a pebble dropped into the still water of a lake. Nothing would ever be the same, but they welcomed it. They would seek the destruction of everything Vader and the Emperor had built, the vengeance of their murdered kin, and then… they would rebuild the galaxy in their image. Free, at last, of the machinations and corruption of the beleaguered, ineffectual Republic and the brutal Empire.

It was all she had ever wanted, and she pitied her former self’s naivete and short-sightedness. Truly, the Force had set her free.

Now it was the galaxy’s turn.

* * *

_To be continued in the next instalment - Game Theory_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bloodhound was just meant to be a one-off, an AU threeshot in the main series storyline of 'New Dawn' but... I just can't help myself, it seems, when it comes to playing with AU, dark!versions of my characters.
> 
> The Bloodhound 'verse is technically made up of two separate series that intersect with each other, and will be shorter than the main series storyline. They are the 'Art of War' series:
> 
> Bloodhound, Game Theory, To Kill An Emperor, The Art of Compromise, and Endgame
> 
> And the 'Artist's Soul, Warrior's Heart' series:  
> A Matter of Line, A Matter of Colour, A Matter of Taste, A Matter of Opinion, A Matter of Perspective, A Matter of Shading, and Chiaroscuro  
> This series takes place during an AU version of Rebels, as a member of the Ghost crew is forced to confront the possibility of a very different role than the one she played in the TV series as her past comes back to haunt her.
> 
> Anyway, 'Game Theory' and Chapter One of 'A Matter of Line' will be up soon. Tell me what you think in the comments below :D!


End file.
